CLEMENS KRAUSS: THE NEW YEAR CONCERTS 1951-1954 (2 CDS) DECCA

A series of three classic Decca studio albums, newly remastered and compiled in one complete set for the first time.

Of all the conductors who have championed the music of the Strauss family with the Vienna Philharmonic, it is Clemens Krauss who was one of the greatest pioneers. He it was who conducted the first New Year’s Day concert in 1939 and continued to lead the occasion each new year until his death in May 1954 but only beginning with the second half of that 1954 concert was the event recorded for commercial release. For each of the previous years, Krauss and the Vienna Philharmonic had gone into the studio during the summer to set down a mix of waltzes and polkas which would when released shortly after the concert proper, make a memento of the occasion for its increasingly worldwide audience on radio.

The various ‘New Year’s Concert’ albums are now presented together in a 2CD set. A new editorial note by the opera director and critic, Mike Ashman, gives context to the stupendous popularity of the Strauss family’s music both in their time and ever since, to the all-too-short career of Krauss and to the tradition of the New Year concerts in Vienna.

To open the set, the overtures to ‘Die Fledermaus’ and ‘Die Zigeunerbaron’ make enticing tasters for Krauss’s Decca studio recordings of both operettas, also reissued by Eloquence (482 7379 and 482 7371). Most of the sweetest Straussian lollipops are here, such as the ‘Blue Danube’ and the ‘Radetzky March’ but so too are lesser-known treasures such as ‘Die Libelle’ (The Dragonfly) and the’ Vergnügungszug Polka’: in their different ways both supreme examples of Viennese light music, conducted by Krauss with a lightness of touch perhaps rivalled since only by Carlos Kleiber.

As specialists in the idioms of ‘both’ Strausses – Richard and the Waltz King’s family – this pair of conductors was unique. Krauss himself was Austrian to the core, the son of a young Viennese court dancer and a banker well-connected at the Habsburg court. He had the unique lift of the waltz-rhythm at his command and the unquestioned respect of the Vienna Philharmonic’s famously individualistic musicians, as these treasurable recordings demonstrate.

‘For those to whom ‘The Blue Danube’ means something that you hear rushed through on the pier or in a café, this playing will be a revelation of sheer delight. Clemens Krauss does it all to perfection. It is good to have some less-known pieces … All ranges of brows, high to low, should have this record by them to restore spirits when in dumps.’ Gramophone, May 1954 (Third New Year’s Concert)

CD 1
JOHANN STRAUSS II:
Die Fledermaus – Overture
Der Zigeunerbaron –Overture
Künstlerleben – Walzer, Op. 316
Frühlingsstimmen – Walzer, Op. 410
JOSEF STRAUSS:
Mein Lebenslauf ist Lieb und Lust!, Op. 263
Die Libelle – Polka mazurka, Op. 204
Jockey – Polka schnell, Op. 278
JOHANN STRAUSS II:
Im Krapfenwald’l – Polka, Op. 336
Éljen a Magyar! – Polka, Op. 332
G’schichten aus dem Wienerwald, Op. 325
JOHANN STRAUSS II & JOSEF STRAUSS: Pizzicato Polka
JOHANN STRAUSS II:
Egyptischer Marsch, Op. 335
Vergnügungszug – Polka, Op. 281

CD 2
JOSEF STRAUSS:
Dorfschwalben aus Österreich – Waltz, Op. 164
Moulinet – Polka française, Op. 57
Ohne Sorgen! – Polka schnell, Op. 271
JOHANN STRAUSS II:
Stadt und Land – Polka, Op. 322
Auf der Jagd – Polka schnell, Op. 373
Morgenblätter – Walzer, Op. 279
JOSEF STRAUSS: Feuerfest! – Polka française, Op. 269
JOHANN STRAUSS II:
Ritter Pásmán, Op. 441: Csárdás
Perpetuum Mobile, Op. 257
An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314
JOSEF STRAUSS: Auf Ferienreisen! – Polka schnell, Op. 133
JOHANN STRAUSS II: Bei uns z’ Haus – Walzer, Op. 361
JOSEF STRAUSS: Sphärenklänge, Op. 235
JOHANN STRAUSS II: Annen-Polka, Op. 137
JOSEF STRAUSS: Plappermäulchen – Polka schnell, Op. 245
JOHANN STRAUSS I: Radetzky-Marsch, Op. 228

Wiener Philharmoniker
Clemens Krauss

FIRST INTERNATIONAL CD RELEASE OF THE COLLECTED CLEMENS KRAUSS NEW YEAR CONCERTS: 1951–54