Johann Strauss II - Kaiser-Walzer (Emperor Waltz), Op. 437

Strauss often played in the glittering Imperial balls, conducting the orchestra and playing the first violin at the same time.   The majestic launch of this fascinating waltz presents the backdrop of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the hegemony of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph in 1888. Johann Strauss II was Music Director of the Dance Hesperides of the Imperial Court from 1863 to 1872 and composed on occasion for the celebration of an imperial anniversary. The ingenuity of the melody of the Emperor Waltz, which was originally orchestrated for a full orchestra, is such that it was easily adapted for the four or five instruments of a chamber ensemble by the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg in 1925. This waltz is a tender and somewhat melancholic work, which at times turns its gaze nostalgically to the old Vienna. The waltz praises the majesty and dignity of the old monarch, who was fully devoted to his people. It begins with a majestic, magnificent march, which soon re
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Vivaldi - Introduction

Portrait of Vivaldi holding a violin

Antonio Vivaldi's music is music full of health. The sounds he created hedonistically breathe the smells of the Mediterranean and capture the joy of life, causing constant bursts of spontaneous excitement and aesthetic enjoyment. The hearing of the Italian composer's music reveals a color richness that only a worthy painter could have imagined.

His work, amazing in scope and depth, impresses with the inexhaustible variety of his inspirations, which are obvious even when the composer dares not be freed from the structural commitment of the almighty in the age of tripartite division: allegro, adagio, allegro.

However, this traditional structure did not prevent him from revising the concerto grosso and proposing a new one for the era of the symphonic idiom, from which the personality of the soloist first emerged.

Vivaldi first imagined and applied the concerto with one or more soloists, even defining the most unusual combinations of instruments. If this is not innovation, originality in music, what can it be? Or did a former composer articulate his musical discourse with the descriptive power of his own music?

Long before Antonio Vivaldi challenged our admiration with his wisdom and fruitful imagination, he had provoked the admiration of Johann Sebastian Bach. It is certainly no coincidence that the Great Cantor copied six of Vivaldi's concertos for a keyboard instrument.
 

(George Monemvasitis)



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