The Last Waltz

by John Suchet

  He set his best-loved and most performed opera, Der Rosenkavalier, in the Vienna of Empress Maria Theresa, that golden age of the mid-eighteenth century when chivalry still ruled and Vienna rivalled Paris as the most dazzling capital city in Continental Europe.

  At the end of Act II, after scenes of chaos and farce on stage, the pompous and much derided Baron Ochs, arm in a sling and drunk on copious quantities of port, dances around the stage ahead of what he believes will be an amorous tryst, unaware he has been thoroughly duped.

  Richard Strauss writes a deliciously wry and ironic waltz and, given that this is Vienna, what better to base it on than one by one of his namesakes (never mind the anachronism that this Strauss lived a century after the action on stage)? He chose a well-known waltz by Josef Strauss, ‘Dynamiden-Walzer’.

  Baron Ochs’s waltz is not just similar to Josef Strauss’s piece, the main theme is identical – a seductive leap of a sixth, followed by a fifth, and then a fourth. The only difference is a subtle variation in the length of the high notes.

  No one can accuse Richard Strauss of plagiarism. He wanted the audience to recognise the work of a Strauss. How better to sum up the essence of Vienna? This is not supposition – he confirmed it himself. In an interview in the Wiener Tagblatt in 1925, he said (referring to Johann II), ‘And with the waltzes from Rosenkavalier … how should I not have thought of the laughing genius of Vienna?’

  Finally, in the pantheon of unlikely musical admirers of Strauss, comes one of the most important British composers of the twentieth century, though one cannot help the feeling that Vaughan Williams was speaking rather begrudgingly when he said, ‘A waltz of Johann Strauss is good music in its proper place.’

  To say that the music of the Strausses lives on is something of an understatement. There is hardly a capital city in Europe, indeed in the developed world, that does not put on a concert of Strauss music to celebrate New Year.

  The most famous of these is the New Year’s Concert held in the gilded Musikverein in the city to which the Strauss family belonged, Vienna. The tradition began in the dark days of 1939 – the first such concert was actually held on New Year’s Eve of that year, roughly a year and a half after Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany. In fact its origins were severely tainted. The concert was created for the purpose of appeasing and flattering the Nazi occupiers.

  That was the first and last time the concert was held on New Year’s Eve. There was a two-year hiatus caused by the war, then from 1941 it was held on New Year’s Day – perhaps to signify a break with the past and its iniquitous origination – and has been every single year since.

  Since 1987 it has become customary to invite a renowned maestro to conduct the concert, and some of the great names in conducting have performed the task – Herbert von Karajan, Carlos Kleiber, Lorin Maazel,84 Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta, to name but a few – but no one conducted more Vienna New Year concerts than Willi Boskovsky.

  Not a conductor, but leader of the Vienna Philharmonic, Boskovsky believed in doing it the way the Strausses themselves did it, and he led the orchestra from the violin for twenty-five consecutive years. I have indelible images in my memory of watching the concert in black and white as a teenager in the 1950s and 1960s, Boskovsky swaying on the podium with his violin under his chin. It was the first time I had heard a Strauss waltz. I was transfixed, and remain so.

  Traditionally the conductor conducts without scores, each piece committed to memory, and afterwards, applauded by admiring crowds braving the cold of a Viennese New Year’s Day, he walks the red carpet from the Musikverein to the Hotel Imperial directly opposite for a celebratory glass of champagne.

  Today the concert is beamed live around the world, and is watched by an audience of literally millions. So popular is it that if you wish to attend, your application has to be in by 31 January for the following year’s concert, and then tickets are allocated by lottery. Some seats are held by Austrian families and are passed down from generation to generation.

  The very first New Year’s Concert consisted of music exclusively by Johann Strauss the Younger. Now it includes music by father and all three sons, as well as other composers – mainly Austrian – such as Lanner, Nicolai, von Suppé, even Mozart.

  One thing is guaranteed. Two pieces will always be performed, although not in the programme itself but as encores. They are, quite simply, the two best-known compositions ever to come out of Vienna.

  Surprising though it may seem, neither ‘By the Beautiful Blue Danube’ nor the ‘Radetzky March’ were performed in the early New Year’s Concerts, and when they were included – ‘Danube’ in 1945, ‘Radetzky’ in 1946 – they were already encores. And that is how they have stayed.85

  It is a firm tradition that after a number of lesser encores, the conductor cues the strings for the shimmering entry of the ‘Blue Danube’. He then stops them, turns to the audience, and he and the players shout ‘Prosit Neujahr!’ (‘Happy New Year’) before beginning the piece again. After that he directs his baton to the percussionist for the side-drum roll that presages the ‘Radetzky March’.

  I find it interesting, even ironic, that Johann Strauss the Younger’s best-known and best-loved composition began life as a choral piece that flopped, and I wonder how many in the audience clapping and stamping their feet to the ‘Radetzky March’ are aware that the only piece by Johann Strauss senior that remains firmly in the repertoire is the one that caused him to be booed off the podium in the wake of the 1848 revolutions.

  Now imagine this. A young boy shows a natural aptitude for the violin, learns quickly, and by the time he is a teenager he has decided he wants a career as a musician. First, though, he has to convince an authoritarian father, a renowned musician himself, who is initially dismissive of the boy’s musical talent and that of his brother too.

  The boy achieves his ambition and becomes a professional musician. As a young man he decides to form his own orchestra, which he calls the Johann Strauss Orchestra. Instead of conducting, he leads from the violin.

  The orchestra is small to begin with, just a dozen players, but it soon swells. Audiences flock to hear him, delighting in the seductive rhythm of the Viennese waltz and the lively beat of the polka.

  Soon the orchestra leaves its home city and begins to tour Eu-rope. Everywhere the players perform, ecstatic audiences applaud and dance, demanding encore after encore. Soon the Johann Strauss Orchestra is touring the world.

  All true of Johann Strauss the Waltz King. True too of a certain André Rieu, born in 1949 in the Dutch town of Maastricht. Here the two names diverge, purely because of the advance of technology. André Rieu’s albums have gone gold and platinum across the globe, and in his native Netherlands he is an eight-time platinum-selling artist.

  In 2009 André Rieu was the world’s most successful male touring artist, according to Billboard magazine. Of course this is due to the flair and showmanship of the Dutchman, but it is also testament to the enduring popularity of the music of Johann Strauss.

  Not so long ago I interviewed André Rieu for Classic FM. I asked him a question that had long been on my mind, I suppose from those early years watching the Vienna New Year’s Day Concert on television. I wanted his answer to why I – and millions like me – find the music of Johann Strauss so instantly appealing and memorable, to the extent that as a boy of seventeen visiting Vienna, the only souvenir I brought home was an LP of Strauss waltzes.

  ‘What is the answer, André? What is it about the music of Johann Strauss that beguiles and bewitches, that seduces the listener? What is the single quality that ensures its immortality?’

  In a perfect echo of the interview I had conducted some years earlier with the president of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, he thought for a moment – just a brief moment – then broke into a wide smile. ‘Simple,’ he said. ‘Strauss makes you happy.’

  I shall give the last word to the Waltz King himself, something he said to his wife Ad�
�le, and on another occasion to a friend. He said it twice, so he must have meant it. This is the man who made Vienna, then Europe, then the world, dance to his music.

  I am always being invited to dance, really tempting and attractive offers. But you know very well that I have never been able to dance, so every time my answer is a decisive ‘no’.

  Johann Strauss the Younger, the Waltz King, could not dance.

  83 As I have noted, Eduard Strauss, younger brother of Johann and Josef, named his two sons after them. They in turn named each of their eldest sons after themselves!

  84 On one occasion, Maazel put down his baton, lifted his violin, and played the zither solos at the start and end of ‘Tales from the Vienna Woods’.

  85 Two exceptions: in 1967 Boskovsky included ‘By the Beautiful Blue Danube’ in the main body of the programme, and in 2004 Lorin Maazel left out the ‘Radetzky March’ as a mark of respect for the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami.

  The cover of By The Beautiful Blue Danube, Johann Strauss the Younger’s most popular work.

  Emperor Franz Joseph I dancing the waltz at the annual Viennese Ball.

  View across the Danube towards Vienna.

  Johnann Strauss the Elder, founder of the most popular and prolific dynasty in history.

  Joseph Lanner, close friend and later bitter rival of Johann Strauss the Elder.

  Johann Strauss’s long-suffering wife, Anna Streim, matriarch of the Strauss dynasty.

  One of Vienna’s opulent coffee houses which sprang up in the nineteenth century; many of them remain unchanged to this day.

  The Café Sacher, part of the historic Sacher Hotel in Vienna, which was founded in 1876. Home of the famous chocolate cake, the Sachertorte.

  Relaxing and dancing – quite possibly to the music of the Strausses – in one of the dozens of cafés and dance halls that sprang up in Vienna in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

  Johann Strauss the Younger.

  Strauss’s violin, which survived into the twentieth century, but was destroyed when the Nazis sacked Vienna.

  Dommayer’s Casino, the suburban tavern where Strauss was to give his first concert in October1844.

  Johann Strauss the Younger performing at Dommayer’s Casino.

  Barricades on St Michael’s Square on the night of 26 to 27 May 1848.

  Johann Strauss I’s grave in Vienna’s Zentralfriedhof, the main cemetery south-east of the city. The grave of his great friend and rival, Joseph Lanner, lies close by in The Musician’s Quarter. They were removed here from Döbling cemetery.

  Olga Smirnitzky, with whom Strauss fell hopelessly in love and hoped to marry.

  Josef Strauss, younger brother of Johann, whom he described as a more gifted musician than himself.

  Statue of Johann Strauss in Pavlovsk.

  Strauss with his wife Jetty.

  The original manuscript of By the Beautiful Blue Danube.

  Johann Strauss liked to compose standing at a desk. Here he is on the verandah of his country house in Bad Ischl in 1880 (see page 196).

  There were 100 conductors and an audience of 100,000, said Strauss, at a monumental concert in Boston of which he hated every minute.

  Elisabeth of Bavaria, known to history as Sisi, beautiful, rebellious, unstable, in the famous 1864 portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. She was totally unsuited to the role of Empress of Austria, hated the formality of court life, and never adapted to it.

  Angelika ‘Lili’ Dittrich, the young actress who became Strauss’s second wife.

  This portrait by Franz von Lehnbach, made in 1895 when Strauss was sixty-nine, captures the man more accurately than any photograph. Here is the real Johann Strauss – intense, determined, driven. Given what we know of his character, I believe ‘manic’ is not too strong a word.

  Johann Strauss and his third wife, Adèle. Despite an age difference of more than thirty years, it was a very happy marriage, lasting until Strauss’s death seventeen years later.

  Eduard Strauss, always stylish and immaculately turned out, never really got on with his elder brother Johann, and lost a fortune due to the prodigality of his wife and sons.

  Katharina Schratt, chosen by the empress to become her husband’s mistress, which she remained until his death.

  Mary Vetsera, mistress of Crown Prince Rudolf, whose fate would become tragically entangled with his.

  Archduke Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, heir to the Habsburg throne.

  Archduke Rudolf lying in state, a wide bandage concealing the fatal gunshot wound to the head.

  Franz Josef I, Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary, from a commemoration card in 1908, marking the sixtieth anniversary of his reign.

  The French newspaper Le Petit Parisien reports the assassination of the Empress.

  The stiletto knife Luccheni used to kill the Empress.

  Strauss standing on the veranda of his villa with Johannes Brahms, two great composers who enjoyed each other’s company. One is nearly a decade older than the other.

  Johann Strauss’s grave in the Musician’s Quarter of Vienna’s main cemetery, the Zentralfriendhof.

  Vienna’s Court Opera House, where Strauss conducted for the last time.

  The tomb of Emperor Franz Josef, with Empress Elizabeth on the left and Crown Prince Rudolf on the right, closer in death than they ever were in life.

  Johann Strauss III, inheritor of a famous name, whose financial improprieties alienated him from his father and landed him in prison.

  Johann Strauss statue in Vienna’s Stadtpark, reputed to be the most photographed subject in Vienna, has formed the romantic image of Strauss the world knows, far removed from the difficult and obsessive character those close to him knew.

  New Year’s Day Concert 2014, conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

  Afterword

  I wrote this book for two reasons.

  Vienna was the first place I ever went abroad without my parents. I was seventeen. It was a trip organised by the University of London (I can’t remember how I found out about it). I had just started learning German at school, had never been so excited about learning anything in my short life, and pestered my dad until he allowed me to sign up.

  I went to Vienna, and fell in love with the city and its music. Everywhere we went, the sounds of Strauss wafted on the air. I was entranced. (We went to a performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Vienna State Opera and I fell asleep.) On the final morning we were received by the mayor of Vienna in the great neo-Gothic Rathaus, and I was chosen to make a short speech of thanks in German. (It had been written for me, I stayed up the night before learning it so I would not have to read it, can still remember it word for word, and have been known to deliver it to anyone who upsets me enough.)

  I knew nothing then about the dark side of the city, nor anything of the history of the Habsburg empire and its obliteration by the First World War. But my imagination was ignited, and remains brightly lit to this day.

  That is the first reason. The second is that I do not believe such a book as mine exists, certainly not in the English language. Those that do are for the most part several decades old, and narrowly based.

  Given the enduring popularity of the music of the Strauss dynasty, there are surprisingly few full biographies. In fact the word ‘few’ is itself an overstatement. Despite the full resources of the Internet, I have found just one.

  It is The Strauss Family, by Peter Kemp (The Baton Press, 1989), part of the series The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers, available now second-hand only on www.amazon.com for $0.96 and www.amazon.co.uk for £0.01.

  I had the good fortune to meet Peter Kemp when I was asked to make the address at the annual dinner of the Johann Strauss Society of Great Britain in October 2003. He presented me with a copy of his book, which he told me ruefully had gone out of print soon after it was published in 1989. I knew at the time how lucky I was to have it in my possession.

  It is an extraordinarily detailed book, interweaving
the lives of the Strausses with their music, and I readily acknowledge my debt to it in writing my own book. What it does not do, though, is relate those lives to the city of Vienna and the turmoil of the Habsburg decline.

  Nor do any other books on the Strausses that I have been able to find – in all cases they are deliberately narrow in scope.

  The fullest account of their lives comes in Johann Strauss: A Century of Light Music, by Heinrich Eduard Jacob (Hutchinson & Co., 1940). It is comprehensive, but again has little to offer on the turmoil of the nineteenth century and is inevitably dated.

  The Viennese-born author Hans Fantel draws heavily on Jacob for his The Waltz Kings: Johann Strauss, Father & Son, and The Romantic Age (William Morrow & Co., 1972). This is good on the two Johanns, father and son, but has little on Josef and Eduard, and has more reflections from an American-based author longing nostalgically for his homeland than real history.