Neue Welt-Bürger, Walzer, Op. 126 - Josef Strauss

"Neue Welt Citizens". In July 1862, Josef Strauss, to his great surprise, was sent by his mother to Russia. He had to substitute for his brother Johann as the conductor of the concerts in Pavlovsk, near St Petersburg. ‘Jean’ had taken ill and wanted to return to Vienna as soon as possible. Pepi did not believe that his brother was really sick, but he did not know that ‘Jean’ wanted to go home primarily because he wanted to marry Jetty Treffz. However, as Josef mistrusted him, his mother told him not to quarrel. Before his hasty departure, Josef Strauss conducted on 27th July 1862 the music for a park festival in the "Neue Welt", a rambling amusement park which belonged to Carl Schwenders in Hietzing. On this occasion, Josef Strauss performed his new waltz Neue Welt-Bürger for the first time. The work was in a certain sense his farewell gift to his large audience. The title page of the piano edition shows the ambience in which the visitors to the "Neue Welt" were able to move about on festive occasions in this establishment. An expansive garden surrounded by a group of splendid buildings was the backdrop for a daïs, from whence the music sounded, played by the big Strauss orchestra. The place was criss-crossed by promenades and offered enough space for seats and tables. The author of the title page even had a balloon ascending into the sky with a wagon, the product of his imagination, powered by a steam engine and with a group of joyful passengers gliding over the "Neue Welt". It would have been impossible for the guests who were present on 27th July 1862 in the Hietzing amusement park and who listened to the première of the waltz Neue Welt-Bürger, to imagine that this world, so full of pleasure and joy, would one day disappear completely from Vienna’s urban landscape, so that practically no stone or tree remained of it. Today, the only reminder of the "Neue Welt" is a small narrow alleyway in the 13th District, and some long-forgotten compositions by Josef and Eduard Strauss, as well as by Carl Michael Ziehrer, among them the waltz Neue Welt-Bürger.

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Painting: Le Bal Mabile
Artist: Jean Béraud

Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice
Manfred Müssauer