Fantasiebilder, Walzer, Op. 151 - Josef Strauss

"Fantasy Pictures". In the joyless Fasching of 1864, which was already overshadowed by the threat of the campaign in Schleswig Holstein, the three Strauss brothers Johann, Josef and Eduard conducted and composed together. For several Fasching festivities Johann and Josef each provided a dedication piece; Josef alone was responsible for the Doctors’ Ball in the Sofiensaal on 11 January 1864. He wrote a waltz with the slightly odd title for a medical ball: “Fantasy Pictures”. He conducted the first performance and had the printed edition dedicated to “the students of medicine at the Vienna Hochschule”. As no less than 18 new compositions by the brothers (six works by Johann, nine by Josef and three by Eduard Strauss), from the 1864 Fasching were performed at the Carnival Review in the Imperial Volksgarten on 14 February 1864, this waltz did not make a particular impression. However, it remained in the repertoire of the Strauss orchestra for a long time, and justifiably so.

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Painting: La Tentación de San Antonio
Artist: Salvador Dalí
Date: 1946

Budapest Strauss Symphony Orchestra
Alfred Walter