CD CONTENTS
1. Carnaval de Vienne/Moriz Rosenthal
2. Wahlstimmen/Karl Tausig
3. Symphonic Metamorphosis of Wein, Weib und Gesang (Wine, Woman and Song)/Leopold
Godowsky
4. Man lebt nur einmal (One Lives but Once)/Karl Tausig
5. Symphonic Metamorphosis of Die Fledermaus/Leopold Godowsky
6. Valse-Caprice in A Major (Op. Posth.)/Karl Tausig
7. Nachtfalter (The Moth)/Karl Tausig
8. Arabesques on By the Beautiful Blue Danube/Adolf Schulz-Evler
LINER NOTES
At the end of Johann Strauss’ 1875 operetta Die Fledermaus, all of the characters drink a
toast to the real culprit of the story—“Champagner hat's verschuldet”—a fitting conclusion to the
most renowned and potent evocation of the carefree life of post-revolution imperial Vienna.
Strauss' sparkling score (never mind that the libretto is an amalgam of German and French
sources), infused with that most famous of Viennese dances, the waltz, lent eloquent expression
to the transitory atmosphere of confidence and prosperity induced by the Hapsburg monarchs.
“The Emporer Franz Joseph I,” it would later be said, "only reigned until the death of Johann
Strauss."
And what could have provided more perfect source material than the music of Strauss, for
the pastiche creations of the illustrious composer-pianists who roamed the world in the latter 19th
and early 20th centuries, forever seeking vehicles with which to exploit the possibilities of their
instrument and display their pianistic prowess? This disc presents a succession of such indulgent
enterprises, all fashioned from Strauss’ music, for four notable composer-pianists: Moriz
Rosenthal, Karl Tausig, Leopold Godowsky, and Adolf Schulz-Evler. In a number of instances,
Strauss himself gave implicit approval to arrangements of his work, and whose great enthusiasm
for the Johann Strauss paraphrases of Moriz Rosenthal.
Having established the raison d'’être for the compositions performed on this disc, it should
come as no surprise that the waltz—that seemingly inexhaustible socio-musical phenomenon of
the 19th century—runs its course through all of these works. I am speaking not of the provincial
dance of close embrace from the late 18th century that caused alarm to Goethe's young Werther
and provoked satire from Lord Byron, but rather a waltz elevated in social position by the
opening of Vienna's cavernous dances halls (including the Sperl in 1807 and the Apollo in 1808).
The waltz had risen in purely musical statue as well, through the efforts of Franz Schubert (who
also demonstrated the value of affixing a descriptive title with the Trauerwaltzer, D 365), Carl
Maria von Weber (who prepared the waltz for the concert stage by adding an introduction and
coda to his Aufforderung zum Tanz), and through the myriad contributions of Joseph Lanner, the
elder Johann Strauss, and their lesser colleagues. However, it remained for Johann Strauss, Jr. to
bring the waltz to its apotheosis as a dance form of unparalleled elegance and sophistication.
Strauss achieved this remarkable transformation through the series of renowned waltz sets he
composed during the 1860s and early 1870s while serving in the position created for his father: -
k.k. Hofballmusikdirektor. In its new splendor, the waltz was capable of garnering the admiration
of musicians as ideologically disparate as Brahms and Wagner.
Moriz Rosenthal (1862-1946) studied with Liszt from 1876-78, after which time he pasued
from concertizing to study philosophy at the University of Vienna. He returned to concert life in
1884, eventually settling in the United States in 1938. The Carnaval de Vienne, as the title
suggests, offers a pastiche of melodies drawn from waltz and operetta compositions alike.
Imaginative figuration (including a brief fugal episode) and daring exploration of the highest and
lowest reaches of the piano encircle the themes).
Karl Tausig (1841-71), the most brilliant and famous among the first generation of Liszt's
pupils, died of typhoid fever at the early age of twenty-nine. Tausig greatly admired Liszt's
Soirées de Vienne (arrangements of some of Schubert's waltzes) and his own Nouvelles soirées
de Vienne, after Strauss waltzes, were dedicated to Liszt. Tausig strays far from the original
compositions, preferring a rhapsodic approach. Amy Fay, a young American pianist, who went to
Berlin in 1869 to study at Tausig’s Akademie, aptly described the discursive nature of the piece:
“Calling the waltz itself the warp of the composition, then through its simple threads we find
darting backwards and forwards a subtle, complicated and tragic mind, an exquisitely refined and
delicate sentiment, and a piquante, aerial fancy, until finally is wrought a brilliant and bewildering
transcription—transfiguration rather—of endless fascination and tantalizing beauty, which no one
but a virtuoso can play and no one but a connoisseur can comprehend.”
Born in Russian Poland, Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938) embarked on an international
performing career firmly established following a successful Berlin recital in 1900. At the outbreak
of World War I he settled permanently in the United States, suffering a stroke in 1930 that ended
his performing career. The Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes from Wein, Weib und Gesang
retains the sequence of themes found in the waltz set, but Godowsky contributes his own lengthy
introduction which bears little relation to the Strauss original. The rather formidable title alludes
to the extravagant contrapuntalism infused into the music; indeed, Godowsky takes pleasure in
simultaneously presenting two or more melodies. This technique is exploited further in the
Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes from Die Fledermaus where in several passages Godowsky
ingeniously combines three melodies—an event as challenging to the listener as the performer.
Unrestricted by a fixed sequence of waltzes, Godowsky draws liberally on the most attractive
melodies in the operetta, intentionally beginning with a devilish presentation of the trio from Act
I. Here (as the music tells us) Rosalinde, Eisenstein and Adele, though outwardly sad, clearly are
looking forward to their respective evening plans.
The famed Blue Danube waltz presented here in the piano arrangement of Adolf SchulzEvler (1852-1905),
receives the most straightforward account of any Strauss work on this disc.
Polish-born Schulz-Evler studied at the Warsaw Conservatory, and later with Karl Tausig. From
1884-1904 he taught at the Kharhov Music School. An der schönen blauen Donau exhibits the
characteristic form of a Strauss waltz set—five numbered waltzed bound rogether with an
introduction (usually slow) and a coda (often reflective). Schulz-Evler adheres closely to the
original, applying decorative figuration (hence the term “arabesques”) intended to fashion the
work for concert performance according to typical 19th century convention. Schulz-Evler's original
compositions are all but forgotten. However, his treatment of the Blue Danube was once quite
popule, as evidenced by the critical misgivings expressed in the 1954 edition of Sir George
Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, where it is described as a work “designed for display
and without musical quality, which is still remembered by some elderly recitalgoers as a
meretricious encore piece.”
~ Thomas Labé
CD is still sealed in new condition.
This is the original factory pressed CD.
|