Luogo e data di registrazione		Palais Schönburg, Vienna (Austria) - 10/12 aprile 1972
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Production		Dr. Andreas Holschneider
	Recording supervision		Werner Mayer
	Recording Engineer		Klaus Scheibe
	Prima Edizione LP		ARCHIV - 2533 134 - (1 LP - durata 48' 15") - (p) 1973 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		ARCHIV - 439 964-2 - (4 CD's - durata 71' 35"; 70' 09"; 70' 42" & 72' 56" - [CD4 5-11]) - (c) 1992 - ADD
	Cover		Wiener Biedermeier-Szenen: "Tanzmeister Pauxel" oder "Faschingsstreiche". Theatermuseum München
	Note		-

 

Viennese Dance dating from the Biedermeier Period “In Vienna in July there is a real folk festival, if ever a festival deserved the name. It is given by and for the ordinary people, and if anyone of higher rank happens to join in, then only in his role as a normal citizen. This is the day when the people of Brigittenau hold their parish fair. In the usually peaceful town uproar prevails. Class distinctions vanish; worthy citizens and rough soldiers share in the bustle... Those who come by carriage climb down and mingle with their brethren on foot; the strains of distant dance-music float overhead and are taken up by cheering newcomers. And so on, further and further, until this generous harbour of delights opens out, and woods and meadows, music and dance, wine and feasting, shadow-plays and tightrope walkers, bright lights and fireworks all blend to become a true Eldorado, a real piece of Paradise...” There is no better picture of the Viennese spirit during the Biedermeier period than this sketch by the Austrian novelist Franz Grillparzer, taken from his short story, Der arme Spielmann. In Austria Biedermeier was that clearly defined period between the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and the year of the Revolution, 1848, between the end of the Napoleonic era and the first attempts by the bourgeoisie to wrest away some of the privileges of the all-powerful aristocracy. At that time the old imperial city of Vienna was still surrounded by mighty fortifications beyond which there were villages and little towns in the midst of pastureland and vineyards. Vienna was still the musical metropolis of the world, and there was music everywhere - in the theatre, in the churches, in stately palaces, middle-class homes and village taverns. In all this, dance music was by no means the worst off; it was not considered in the least lowly, and it was treated with respect by the great masters as well as by dozens of less famous composers whose names have now been forgotten. In such an atmosphere it was only natural that Franz Schubert - one of the few great Viennese composers who were actually born in Vienna - played waltzes and ländler on the piano, and that he wrote them down. It was also only natural that for his own friends he composed minuets scored for a string quartet; it was customary at the time to write them for a large orchestra to be played in the ballroom. The fact that they are masterpieces is just another extraordinary aspect of this young man’s genius - at the time he was just 16. The moods of the late string quartets are already evident here, and the formal interweaving of minuets and trios is a stroke of genius. Minuets I, III and V each have two trios, Minuets II and IV on the other hand none at all; the result is that when played in sequence Minuets III and V seem to become trios for the minuets that precede them. By erasing the contours of his compositions, Schubert achieves a remarkable effect of concentration. As he wandered with his friends through the villages, Schubert was constantly absorbing the stock-in-trade of the local music. A favourite setting was for two violins and a small double bass - the so-called “Bassl”; occasionally the tonal gap between these was filled up by a guitar, and sometimes the guitar took the bass’s place. The “violinists from Linz” came down the Danube to Vienna with these instruments, and played for dances there. In the versions which have survived, one can often still find the old pairing of slow and fast dances (as in the “Linz” dance). The polka imported from Bohemia also puts in an appearance, though here in a Viennese version (Viennese Polka). And when the young Schubert writes four “comic ländler” for two violins he makes a good job of imitating the manner of popular music-makers. Just as the nobility maintained residences in the country for the summer months, so the wellheeled middle-classes liked to have a house “in the country”. The favourite districts were just a few kilometres from the city itself in Heiligenstadt and Nussdorf; Mödling and Baden were a day’s journey away to the south. Those without a country house would rent rooms there and move out of the city for the summer. The great man from Bonn who had made his home in Vienna also followed this custom; during one of his stays in Mödling, Beethoven actually met the musicians for whom he had written the “Mödling” Dances in 1819. Viennese folkmusic is often scored for two clarinets as well as two violins; in these dances the clarinet dominates, though the scoring also includes two violins, a flute, a bassoon and two horns. The idyllic mood is strongly reminiscent of the Trio from the Scherzo in the Eighth Symphony. One or two lesser composers also achieved fame with some brilliant compositions. The music libraries in Vienna are full of such works, and from them we have chosen the German Dances by Ignaz Moscheles. He was born in Prague and was a child prodigy as pianist and composer. At the time of the Congress of Vienna he was living in the city, studying composition under Albrechtsberger and Salieri, and appearing in his own concerts. His German Dances exude the true Schubertian spirit, and in their tendency to modulate to the minor and to make use of third-relationships they show a strong resemblance to Schubert’s work. Right in the middle of the turbulent coda there is, as a finishing touch, a bell which tolls twelve times (we find it again as a charming touch in Die Fledermaus) and the nightwatchman’s song is invoked; then the whole is rounded off in a dashing finale. A true product of the Viennese outskirts was the tavern violinist Michael Pamer, known in his day as a great virtuoso. He was active in teaching and encouraging the younger generation, to which Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss (the Elder) belonged. Indeed it was thanks to Pamer that the truly “Viennese” waltzes became accepted, and it was only on the basis of his work that Joseph Lanner, Vienna’s musical darling, could produce his gentle melodies which reveal the very best aspects of Viennese music of the time; even in the guise of a Hungarian in the Rakoczi March (The Hungarian Galop) Lanner could not hide his Viennese origins. Looking back at this period over one and a half tenturies, one would like to enjoy its music in its authentic form; it is therefore reproduced here without any retouching whatsoever - markedly different from the versions played by modern dance bands, or those “symphonic” effects produced by our best orchestras. Here the scoring is for a small group of strings, the most usual way it was heard then, and the original instrumentation offers a natural balance between strings and wind. E. Melkus - W. Gabriel