Johann Strauss Gala
Andrea Rost (soprano)
José Carreras (tenor)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Zubin Mehta
rec. live, Heldenplatz, Vienna, 29 May 1999
Sound format: PCM Stereo
Picture format: 16:9
Resolution: 1080i High Definition (upscale)
Blu-ray Disc 25 GB (single layer)
Region: worldwide
ARTHAUS MUSIK Blu-ray Disc 108174 [114:00]
Johann Strauss II died in Vienna on 3 June 1899. On the Saturday
evening preceding the 100th anniversary of that date, the Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra gave an open air concert of his music - along with some by his father
- in front of almost 8,000 spectators in the city's imposing Heldenplatz.
This disc records that occasion.
What is immediately obvious is that Vienna takes a formal approach to such
events. Whereas a London open-air audience might well have come in jeans and
sweatshirts and brought picnic hampers, the Viennese sport their smartest
outfits - virtually all the men wear suits and ties - and sit in neatly regimented
rows with not a single egg and cress sandwich in sight. Even their rhythmic
clapping during the final Radetzky march is strictly drilled by Maestro
Mehta who, with the air of a heroic general commanding his troops, turns to
lead them from his rostrum.
In contrast to the somewhat serious audience, the orchestra appears pretty
relaxed and, indeed, at times to be having a great deal of fun. So too does
their conductor, as we can see not only from the recording's very many
close-up shots but also on a pair of giant TV screens positioned to each side
of the stage. Mehta would feel quite at home in the Austrian capital. After
making his conducting debut there almost 60 years ago, he has developed a
close association with the Vienna Philharmonic, receiving its Nikisch Ring
award as well as being made its Honorary Conductor in 2001. Of the two well-matched
vocal soloists, the charismatic and beautifully-outfitted Hungarian soprano
Andrea Rost also smiles a great deal, though for some reason Jose Carreras
tends to adopt a rather more serious demeanour.
In spite of Mr Carreras’s apparent reluctance to smile, this was clearly
an evening of simple and unapologetic fun and good humour. As such, while
the Vienna Philharmonic conveys an air of Gemütlichkeit and plays
with the greatest assurance and appreciation of the Strauss family's
characteristic idiom, it would be pointless to offer any criticism based on
strictly musical grounds. In fact, the most musically enlightening moment,
at least for me, occurred in the polka inspired by the Krapfenwaldl, a wooded
district of Vienna, where we get to see close-ups of the devices - can they
be called "instruments"? - used to make cuckoo calls and generalised
bird twittering sounds.
I wonder whether video director Bob Coles was somewhat constrained in his
choice of shots. One particular view of the audience, featuring a woman in
a light blue silk gown, is used repeatedly, while a relatively small number
of the orchestral players are shown so regularly that by the end of the evening
I felt that the piccolo player and the horn player with spiky hair were old
friends. In what I take to be an attempt to introduce a little more visual
variety, we get to see plenty of views over the trees on the edge of the Heldenplatz,
as well as the square's architectural details and its statuary, including
not one but two quite prolonged shots of a guano-encrusted statue of a general
on horseback.
This disc is ostensibly, then, a perfectly acceptable, if by no means remarkable,
record of that evening's commemorative concert. As prospective purchasers
study the promotional blurb on the back cover, however, they may well start
to become a little perplexed.
"Inspired by the enthusiasm of the crowd", they will read, "Mehta
was moved to play the Radetzky March as an encore - the traditional closing
piece at every Strauss concert." Well, forgive me for nit-picking, but
either the march was played automatically because it's the
finale to "every" such occasion or else the conductor chose
to play it because he was inspired to do so by the audience. Did no-one on
Arthaus Musik's marketing team proof-read the text and think through
the meaning of the words? I'm forced to conclude that they didn't,
for there's also some downright factual inaccuracy on the packaging
- where the disc's running time is said to be 90 minutes when, at 114,
it's actually considerably longer than that.
Inside the booklet, things sometimes aren't much better. A paragraph
that can't decide whether "Carnival" or "Carneval"
is the correct spelling also fails to master the subtleties of the English
apostrophe, as it informs us that "Johann Strauss son also tirelessly
invented new dance tunes for the time of fools". The time of fools???
Here I can only surmise that someone with no appreciation of everyday English
has come up with a sadly literal and quite meaningless translation of the
words "die närrische Zeit" that occur in the booklet's parallel
German text. Wouldn't something like "Vienna's annual Carnival
season" have made more sense to non-German speakers? Similarly, when
the German booklet text makes passing reference to "die Doppelmonarchie"
of Austria-Hungary, it is accorded a literal translation as "the double
monarchy" whereas English-speakers customarily refer to the Habsburg
regime as "the Dual Monarchy". Was there really no-one with a more
idiomatic command of English available in the office that day?
Arthaus-Musik GmbH is a German company with its headquarters near Leipzig.
Were it marketing its product primarily in German-speaking countries and just
exporting the odd disc or two abroad, this really wouldn't be too big
an issue. Perhaps, in itself, it actually isn't. But if you position
yourself as a high-profile international player - which the enterprising and
highly successful Arthaus-Musik, with an impressive catalogue to its name,
certainly is - then I do think that you need to pay your various worldwide
target audiences rather greater respect than this.
Thankfully, though, the contents of the disc itself are of a markedly higher
standard than their irritatingly slipshod presentation suggests, even though
I finished watching with the distinctly reinforced opinion that this is music
for dancing rather than for listening to at length in a single uninterrupted
sitting.
Rob Maynard
Contents
Johann STRAUSS II (1825-1899)
Einzugsmarsch from Der Zigeunerbaron (1885) [3:28]
Im Sturmschritt op.348, polka (?) [2:54]
Wiener Blut op.354, waltz (1873) [9:04]
Stadt und Land op.322, polka mazurka (?) [4:55]
Nur fort! op.383, polka (?) [3:21]
Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka op.214 (1858) [3:30]
Overture from Die Fledermaus (1874) [8:58]
Czardas from Die Fledermaus (1874) [5:57]
Johann STRAUSS I (1804-1849)
Loreley-Rhein-Klänge op.154, waltz (1843) [7:53]
Beliebte Annen-Polka op.137 (1852) [2:21]
Sperl-Galopp op.42 (?) [2:39]
Johann STRAUSS II (1825-1899)
Im Krapfenwaldl op.336, polka française (1869) [4:44]
Wiener Bonbons op.307, waltz (1866) [9:19]
Wer uns getraut from Der Zigeunerbaron (1885)
[5:18]
Unter Donner und Blitz op.324, polka (1868) [4:06]
Gondellied from Eine Nacht in Venedig (1883) [4:54]
Duet from Wiener Blut (1899) [3:59]
An der schönen blauen Donau op.314, waltz (1867) [9:52]
Johann STRAUSS I (1804-1849)
Radetzky-Marsch op.228 (1848) [5:57]
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