Johann Strauss I, Odeon Tänze, Walzer, Op. 172

From www.cpestrauss.com https://www.cpestrauss.com/lmusic/ode... My transcription from the autograph of this waltz by Johann Strauss I. Strauss and his orchestra played at the opening of the Odeon dance hall on the 8th of January 1845. The Odeon was the largest dance hall in Vienna with the main ballroom capable of accommodating 8000 dancers. It lasted less than four years, burning down in 1848. The score is for a fairly small orchestra. Johann Strauss II said his father’s normal orchestra comprised 30 something players. It should be noted that for the performance at the opening the Strauss orchestra had more than 80 players. Presumably the performance materiel was beefed up for the occasion. Strauss manages to be both over- and underrated simultaneously. He justifies a complete recorded edition of his music when his (arguably) better contemporary Joseph Lanner is neglected but the complete edition recordings are almost without exception bland enough to make one wonder what the fuss was about. They’re usually too slow, flat and leaden. To be fair, the Märzendorfer recording of this waltz isn’t much slower than mine but the dynamic range is narrow and the accompaniment is mechanical. So here is my mechanical version. Quickish and when Strauss says fortissimo he gets it. The score has Strauss’s usual idiosyncrasies, namely inconsistent phrasing and articulations between parts for no apparent reason and some effects that don’t work. Players playing two instruments are given little time to change between them. My favourites in this piece are the flutes. Each flute player sometimes plays piccolo. There’s no pattern as to who is doing what. There is one place where Player 1 was playing flute and is asked to change to piccolo in the space of two beats. At the same time, Player 2 who was already playing piccolo is asked to swap to flute. There’s no reason for this in the music but it’s definitely not a mistake.