On 5 April 1874 Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat) had its premiere in the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, at a time when the Viennese still had all too unpleasant memories of the stock exchange crash of 9 May 1873 and the gigantic deficit of nineteen million gulden made by the World Exhibition held in Vienna in the same year. Many of them may thus have seen a thoroughly positive side to a view of life such as that sung about in Alfred’s drinking song in the finale of the first act of the operetta Die Fledermaus, ‘Happy is he who forgets what can no longer be changed,’ that is to say not worrying about either the past or the future but living exclusively for the moment. The same attitude to life is described by the Spanish writer Baltasar Gracián y Morales in his Oracolo manual, published in 1674, two hundred years earlier. The educated bourgeoisie of Vienna may well have known about Gracían’s work, as a new translation by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer had been published in 1862. The polka mazurka, ‘Glücklich ist, wer vergisst’ is one of six dances arranged from the melodies of the operetta Die Fledermaus. The publication of the piano edition was announced in the morning edition of the Tages-Presse newspaper on 11 October 1874 with the comment that the polka mazurka was ‘already very well-known from the performances of Mr Eduard Strauss’s orchestra’, that is to say that its first performance must have taken place at an earlier date, probably in the summer or autumn of 1874. Synopsis: Prof. Norbert Rubey
Tuesday, 28. April 202618.00 o' clock Linz ⁄ Brucknerhaus
Concert in Linz
Alfred Eschwé conductor
Program Johann Strauss II : Overture to the operetta "The Gypsy Baron" Johann Strauss II : Etwas Kleines / Polka française op. 190 Johann Strauss II : From the Banks of the Danube / Quick polka op. 356 Johann Strauss II : Danube Maidens / Waltz op. 427 Johann Strauss II : « Happy Is He Who Forgets!», Polka Mazurka op. 368 Johann Strauss II : Tick Tock / Quick polka op. 365 Johann Strauss II : Du und Du, Walzer nach Motiven aus der Operette «Die Fledermaus» op. 367 Break Johann Strauss II : Ouverture zu «Prinz Methusalem» Johann Strauss II : We’re Not That Worried / Quick polka (Galop) op. 413 Johann Strauss II : Lagunen-Walzer, nach Motiven der Operette "Eine Nacht in Venedig" op. 411 Josef Strauss : Buchstaben / Polka francaise op. 252 Johann Strauss II : Perpetual Motion / Musical joke op. 257 Johann Strauss II : Hunting / Quick polka op. 373 Johann Strauss II : The Blue Danube / Waltz op. 314
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