Johann Strauss II - Architecten Ball-Tänze, Walzer, Op. 36 - Robert Stolz & Berliner Symphoniker

"This year's carnival is one of the most patronised, that is, by the dance music composers. Strauss Father, alone, has furnished seven compositions, and Strauss Son five. Strauss (Father) has composed 4 waltzes, 2 quadrilles and 1 polka. A waltz consists of 10 melodies, a quadrille of 12 and a polka of 3, therefore he has provided a total of 67 melodies. - How many composers of opera would be able to do this in the course of six weeks? Strauss Son has furnished 2 waltzes, 2 quadrilles and a polka, thus a total of 47 melodies, and with neither [man] are the Introductions and Codas taken into account. The Viennese have received from Strauss Father and Son alone 114 melodies; is it therefore any wonder that everywhere one hears nothing but singing and whistling? Moreover, it would be interesting to know how many waltzes altogether are produced in a Viennese carnival season".

This illuminating paragraph appeared in the Wiener Allgemeine Theaterzeitung on 13 February 1847, just before the close of that year's Vienna Carnival. The elder Johann Strauss had again dominated the proceedings, conducting at balls for the Court and nobility and at such venues as the Sofienbad-Saal, the 'Sperl' and the Odeon. His 21-year-old son, meanwhile, confined his carnival appearances to the suburbs of Vienna: Dommayer's Casino in Hietzing and 'Zum goldenen Strauss' in Josefstadt. The younger Johann was thus responsible for providing the music when Vienna's architects held their 'Representation Ball' on 27 January 1847 in Herr Stern's newly refurbished Goldener Strauss - an establishment described by Der Wanderer (8.02.1847) as "the true Mecca, an excellent treasure-trove of amusement ...[and] because of the association balls, often the meeting place of the most distinguished society". "As far as the music is concerned", the paper continued, "it is always under the direction of Strauss Son, whose excellence is recognised".

Johann's contribution to the architects' ball was his appropriately entitled waltz Architecten-Ball Tänze, his first dedication for a society ball in the Imperial capital, H.F. Müller's publishing house issued the piano edition of the new work on 2 September 1847, bearing the composer's dedication "to the Students of Architecture at the Imperial-Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna". It was these students of architecture and their teachers who were subsequently responsible for the construction, notably in the area of what was to become Vienna's Ringstrasse, of several imposing buildings which were to give the Austrian capital its highly regarded and individual appearance.

Robert Stolz & Berliner Symphoniker

Painting: Richard Moser - Wien Elisabethbrücke (1911)