Alfred Eschwé, Conductor
Wiener Johann Strauss Orchester | Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra
Recorded live on October 26, 2016 in the Golden Hall of the Wiener Musikverein.

00:00 Intro
00:10 Introduktion Tempo di Valse
01:21 Langsam
02:23 Moderato Langsam (Ländler Tempo)
03:20 Vivace
03:39 Walzer 1 Tempo di Valse
04:31 Walzer 2
05:40 Walzer 3
06:51 Walzer 4
07:56 Walzer 5

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Abridged description of the work:
The waltz "Stories from the Vienna Woods" is based on a literary programme, like the waltz "Dorfschwalben aus Österreich" by his brother Josef. It is also a deeply touching expression of the love of home that had flared up in Johann Strauss (son) when the AustroHungarian Monarchy lost its rank as the leading great power in the war against Prussia in 1866. The waltz "On the beautiful blue Danube", op. 314, can be seen as the first reaction to the defeat on the Bohemian battlefields, the waltz "Tales from the Vienna Woods" offers an extension and supplement. If you understand “melodies” instead of “stories”, then the content of this waltz is already explained. The people from the small settlements around the metropolis are conjured up by quotations from their music. Johann Strauss (son) had used zither players as a soloist several times at his concerts in Vienna and in Russia. Now he brings one of these folksy musicians from the outskirts of Vienna into the middle of his large orchestra. During the introduction, the zither is intended to refer to the close connection between Viennese music and the dance tunes and songs from Austria below and above the Enns and further from Styria. At the end of the wideranging tone poem “Stories from the Vienna Woods”, Johann Strauss (son) comes back to this reference to underline it. And the wonderful violin waltz, which he developed from the local national dances, always slipped back into the sphere of the Ländler, the waltz in the Ländler style, as his father played it in Ungers Casino in front of the Hernalser line and his son had taken it over from him. You can certainly dance to the “Tales from the Vienna Woods”, but they are not waltzes. They were heard for the first time at a concert in the k.k. Volksgarten on June 19, 1868 and was repeated a few days later at a lieder panel of the Vienna Men's Choir in the "Neue Welt" in Hietzing. Both times, Johann Strauss (son) took up the violin himself to present the work to an enthusiastic audience. At the concert in the k.k. Volksgarten, the waltz found its place next to the then new music from Richard Wagner’s opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which was not performed in Vienna in 1868 either in the k.k. Court Opera Theater could still be heard in the Musikverein, but only in the Strauss concerts. The work of Richard Wagner probably also offered the right dimensions for the “Tales from the Vienna Woods”. The apotheosis of the national music from the area around the imperial city in connection with the Viennese dance, the waltz, and the abundance of gifted ideas that line up here make the special status of the large, farreaching concert waltz. On the title page of the first edition of the “Tales from the Vienna Woods” is the dedication: “His Serene Highness Prince Constantin zu HohenloheSchillingsfürst.” The work was therefore dedicated to the Supreme Court Master at the Imperial Court in Vienna at the time, who resided in the Palais Augarten on an island in the Danube. It is conceivable that Johann Strauss (son) performed his waltz in a preview for the guests of the prince and his artloving wife, because the princess, the daughter of the longstanding partner of the piano virtuoso and composer Franz Liszt, Princess Caroline zu SaynWittgenstein , emphasized in her letter to Johann Strauss that "the performance of her beautiful waltz" gave her such great pleasure that she had the composer presented with a souvenir. But maybe the princess also saw the waltz at its premiere in the k.k. Volksgarten belongs, because this belonged to the courtyard area and was also under the supervision of her husband. The waltz "Stories from the Vienna Woods" was immediately recognized and acknowledged as one of Johann Strauss's masterpieces.

Text: Prof. Franz Mailer (Source: WJSO.at)
The full description of the work can be found at: https://wjso.at/deat/Home/Events/Eve...

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