Mixed Media

CD of the Month

Dancing in Vienna

Johann and his brothers: a very special chapter in music and family history, which Manuel Brug recently drew attention to in tanz magazine's yearbook. After all, on 25 October, the whole world celebrates the 200 birthday of arguably the most successful representative of the Strauss dynasty.

The fact that Eduard and Josef Strauss were no less talented is audibly demonstrated by Iain Sutherland's live recording of a concert by the Philharmonic Concert Orchestra: Josef's Plappermäulchen Polka is a number in itself, and in the Jokey Polka, the second eldest brother delivers the blast the audience was hoping for, while his younger brother Eduard lets off steam in a different way in Bahn frei: He appropriately picks up his fife.

The CD Dancing in Vienna is certainly never monotonous; it doesn't, as feared, become exhausted in 3/4 time. Robert Stolz's Gruß aus Wien at the very beginning, for example, turns out to be a march—and even Johannes Brahms's Ungarische Tänze develop their rousing momentum in a different time signature: after all, Vienna during the Imperial era was anything but a city that set strict boundaries. Musically, at least, it practiced an openness that still benefits us today.

Hartmut Regitz

Strauss, Brahms, Stolz, Heuberger: Dancing in Vienna, Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, conductor: Iain Sutherland; www.somm-recordings.com