Johann Strauss, "right" and "left"

Synopsis

The "Radetzky March" is undoubtedly Johann Strauss Senior's most famous work. Its performance has become obligatory at the annual New Year's concert of the Vienna Philharmonic—it's the piece that involves audience participation in the form of a "clap along."

The premiere performance of this familiar music took place on today's date in the year 1848. Few people outside of Vienna know that this music had a distinct political subtext in Strauss's day, and not everyone back then was clapping along.

Field Marshall Radetzky was the commander of the Austrian forces that put down "insurgent democrats" in Italy during the revolutions of 1848, and, as such, became a counter-revolutionary hero in Europe. The premiere of the "Radetzky March" occurred at a concert attended chiefly by monarchists and the Austrian military, and the tune quickly became the unofficial anthem of the Austrian military and ultra-conservatives—the "far right" of that time.

Curiously enough, Johann Strauss Junior held diametrically opposite political sympathies from his father. The younger Strauss even wrote a "Revolution" March and in 1848 his Viennese orchestra once dared play the "far left" French anthem, the "Marseillaise," which got him into trouble with the authorities.

By the end of the 19th century, however, the bloody political troubles of 1848 were diplomatically swept under the collective Austrian carpet, and Johann Strauss Junior's "Blue Danube" Waltz became the unofficial anthem for ALL Austrians, right, left and center.

Music Played in Today's Program

Johann Strauss Sr. (1804 – 1849) Radetzky March Johann Strauss Orchestra; Christopher Warren-Green, cond. Black Box 1059

On This Day

Births

• 1834 - Italian opera composer Amilcare Ponchielli, in Paderno Fasolaro, Cremona;

Premieres

• 1928 - Kurt Weill: "Die Dreigroschenoper" (The Threepenny Opera) in Berlin at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, to a libretto by German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht

• 1970 - Birtwistle: "Verses for Ensembles," in London;

• 2000 - Philip Glass: opera "In the Penal Colony" (based on a story by Franz Kafka), by A Contemporary Theatre (ACT) in Seattle.