Mai-Rosen, Walzer, Op. 34 - Josef Strauss

"May Roses". During the first years of his career as an orchestra conductor and composer, Josef Strauss read from time to time in the newspapers that he seemed to be following in Joseph Lanner’s footsteps with his waltzes. “Pepi” must have been pleased with this idea, since among Vienna music fans the memory of the blond violinist, who died much too young in 1843, was still very vivid. To be compared to him and measured against his success represented both recognition and a challenge for “Pepi” Strauss. Certainly, there is a certain affinity between the two Viennese musicians: young Josef Strauss, too, had written several light-hearted melodies in three-quarter time, but in his early works there was also room for a touch of melancholy. “Pepi” was quite an individual, a fact which he proved in the sometimes truly “Lanner-like” yet still totally original waltz scores which he wrote in the spring of 1857 for a May Festival in the Volksgarten. But Josef the conductor must have thought that the new waltz by Josef the composer needed a special rehearsal, and therefore he included it—as noted in his records and those of horn player Franz Sabay—in the programme of the Sunday concert held at Ungers Casino in Hernals on 10 May 1857. Two days later, in the Volksgarten, the waltz was officially “premièred” and greatly admired.

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Painting: Large Decorative Still Life with Roses
Artist: Emil Hariel
Date: 1900

Vienna Chamber Orchestra
Paul Angerer