Lebenswecker op. 232 - Johann Strauss II скачать в хорошем качестве

Lebenswecker op. 232 - Johann Strauss II

Lebenswecker, walzer op. 232 (Life's Awakener). Author: Johann Strauss II (1825-1899). The passage of twenty years separates Joseph Lanner's waltz Die Lebenswecker op. 104 of 1836 from the younger Johann Strauss's similarly entitled waltz Lebenswecker. Both works honour the medical profession, the earlier being dedicated to "The Gentlemen Practising Physicians" whilst the latter was Strauss's dedication to the "Gentlemen Students of Medicine at Vienna University" on the occasion of their ball held in the Sofienbad-Saal on 24 January 1860. The Strauss Orchestra's receipt book for 1860 reveals the phenomenal and insatiable demand for the services of the brothers Johann and Josef during the Vienna Carnival months of January and February. The Medical Students' Ball, for example, was only one of three festivities on 24 January at which the Strauss Orchestra performed. Yet, despite the increasing musical prominence of Josef Strauss, it was Johann's violin which held sway over the dance-loving Viennese and to which they most wanted to dance. Such pressures on the 34-year-old composer/conductor had already brought him to the point of physical and mental collapse during the early 1850s and, indeed, had been the reason for Josef abandoning his own burgeoning career as an engineer to relieve his older brother as conductor of the family orchestra. With Josef's subsequent decision to turn his attentions to pursuing a full time musical profession, Johann was able to make personal, if brief, appearances at several different venues on the same day. This practice led to articles in some of the journals, like that in the Wiener Theaterzeitung on 27 January 1860, headed' "Johann Strauss a My1hical Person". The paper suggested that a visitor to Vienna might well be frustrated in his quest of seeing the waltz composer conduct in person, as announced on numerous advertising placards, and eventually be led to enquire: "Does such a person really exist ... or does this name denote merely a beautiful being from fairyland? Does Vienna have a Johann Strauss who is always only on paper, or has it one of flesh and blood?". "Yes", the journal discloses, "it does have one, but the most fortunate people, who otherwise see everything which ordinary mortal people do not see, Sunday's children, scarcely ever catch sight of him. On Fasching [= Carnival] Sundays Johann Strauss travels like a demon with a good fiaker [= cabbie] from one establishment to another; he has to be everywhere and so he is nowhere. Now he conducts an orchestra here, then there, and so it is that one has to seek for a long time before finding him". It is difficult to be precise concerning what Johann Strauss had in mind when he chose to christen his waltz Lebenswecker - "Life's Awakener". The artist who illustrated the title page of the work's first piano edition, however, was in no doubt: it was the noble vine, whose leaves and fruit feature prominently, whilst a recumbent cherub imbibes liberally from an upturned wine bottle!