Viennese Dances
It’s always exciting to take delivery of a new load of sheet music and this week, we’ve added considerably to our bulging shelves by acquiring a sparkling array of Viennese Dance pieces - ideal for themed events, palm court evenings or possibly a lively and light-hearted Viennese New Years Day concert.
The most well known composer of this style of music would be Johann Strauss (the younger), but we’ve extended the repertoire to include Polkas, Gallops and spirited Waltzes by Josef Strauss, Johann Strauss Senior, Josef Lanner, and two lesser known composers Schrammel and Rozsavolgyi. Although these days, many performances of these rousing Viennese favourites are given by large symphony orchestras, back at the time they were originally composed, it’s likely that they were conceived for smaller chamber ensembles and played just as often in domestic settings as dance halls, cafes and ballrooms. Some of the pieces were written for an ensemble as small as a string quartet and many others were composed for an orchestra of no more than 20 musicians - when heard in this context, the music takes on a completely different feel and it’s true to say, regains a lot of it’s freshness.
Although so far we haven’t been asked for this kind of music at weddings or functions, we are keen to programme them into some of our forthcoming recitals - ideal as an encore after a ‘popular classics’ type concert, to send the audience home in good spirits. We are also looking for a church or concert hall in which to put on our own Viennese Classics Performance at New Year (2011) and will post details up as soon as we have something confirmed in the diary.
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