The Return of the Johann Strauss  Society to the Vienna City Hall

 

As the 100th anniversary of the death of Johann Strauss fell on 3rd June, 1999, which coincided with the public holiday of Corpus Christi, a significantly larger number of people were able to attend the commemorative events held throughout the day. Between the traditional wreath-laying ceremonies in honour of the waltz king – in the morning  at his honorary grave at the Vienna Central Cemetery and in the afternoon before the monument in Vienna’s Stadtpark – a festive midday concert took place at the Vienna City Hall. The Strauss Festival Orchestra Vienna performed under the baton of Peter Guth, a long-standing member of the Johann Strauss Society of Vienna. The vocal soloists were Ildikó Raimondi, a soprano of the Vienna State Opera, Peter Widholz – ensuring the Strauss Society’s vocal representation – and Peter Edelmann, an Austrian baritone from the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

The matinee was devoted entirely to the major project that Prof. Franz Mailer, the then president of the Johann Strauss Society of Vienna, had initiated immediately after taking office in 1992 – the scholarly complete edition of all surviving compositions by Johann Strauss in full score and orchestral parts. This ambitious project required substantial financial resources, a significant portion of which was secured through private sponsorship, largely thanks to the efforts of Dr.Eva Walderdorff. It was she, too, who organized this concert in the Volkshalle of the Vienna City Hall, not only in honour of the waltz king, but also in gratitude for this indispensable support.

On behalf of the Mayor of Vienna, Dr. Michael Häupl, who had invited the guests to the event, the City Councillor for Culture, Dr. Peter Marboe, welcomed the distinguished audience at the beginning of the concert. Prof. Franz Mailer then presented the project „New Johann Strauss Complete Edition“ to the audience. After two additional speeches, the concert began, offering a wide-ranging survey of the waltz king’s oeuvre, using scores from this first – and to this day only – complete Johann Strauss edition worldwide. The programme concluded with the Blue Danube Waltz and a trio version of „Brüderlein und Schwesterlein“ from „Die Fledermaus“. After enthusiastic applause, the memorial concert drew to a close with the drinking song from Act II from the same operetta.

Among the numerous attendees were many prominent figures from the fields of art, culture, politics, business, and society. Representing the Vienna State Opera were Kammersängerin Renate Holm, Kammersänger Walter Berry, Kammersänger Peter Edelmann, and Kammersänger Heinz Holecek; from the Vienna Volksoper attended General Music Director Franz Bauer-Theussl and Kammersänger Peter Minich. The visual arts were also prominently represented by University professor Arik Brauer. Representling the Vienna Burgtheater was Kammerschauspieler Professor Rudolf Buczolich. In addition to numerous executives of the companies that had sponsored the complete edition, Dr. Rudolf Streicher, Chairman of the Austrian State Industrial Holding Company (ÖIAG), and former Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Transport also attended the concert performance. Descendants of the Strauss family were also present, led by family matriarch Hedwig Aigner-Strauss. Immediately following the concert, the success of the performance was celebrated at an opulent buffet in the rooms on the first floor of the Vienna City Hall.

Following the two highly successful festival weeks organized by the Vienna Strauss Society in 1949 and 1950, the City of Vienna adopted this concept for the subsequent year and reshaped it according to its own vision. Since 1951, the Vienna Festival Weeks have thus been held annually. In their very first year, the festival organizers demonstrated their close affiliation with their precursor, the Johann Strauss Society of Vienna, by inviting  them to perform a concert in the Arkadenhof of the Vienna City Hall. On that occasion, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra performed under the direction of Franz Salmhofer, the honorary president of the Society, Wilma Lipp and the Vienna Men’s Choral Association provided the vocal performances. As the concert had also taken place on the anniversary of the death of Johann Strauss , exactly 48 years had passed before the Johann Strauss Society of Vienna was able to return to the Vienna City hall with one of its events. This time, however, the audience included a far greater number of distinguished guests and the occasion attracted considerable media attention: various television stations and newspapers provided extensive coverage of the event on 3rd June 1999. Thus the Johann Strauss Society once again demonstrated its prominence only a few days after hosting its „International Johann Strauss Singing Competition“. This particular event highlighted the society’s significance in a dual sense: artistically as well as academically. After seven years under the presidency of Franz Mailer, the Society had regained the international reputation it had earned shortly after its founding in 1936, and had successfully preserved during the first decades following its re-establishment in 1946.

 

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