name	Blues
bgcolor	#0000E1
color	white
stylistic origins	Work songSpirituals
cultural origins	Late 19th century, southern United States
instruments	Guitar Piano Harmonica Double bass Drums Saxophone Vocals Trumpet Trombone
popularity	Widespread since the early 20th century
derivatives	Bluegrass Jazz R&B; Rock and roll Rock music
subgenrelist	List of genres of the blues
subgenres	Boogie-woogie Classic female blues Country blues Delta blues Electric blues Fife and drum blues Jump blues Piano blues
fusiongenres	Blues-rock African blues Punk blues Soul blues
regional scenes	British blues Canadian blues Chicago blues Detroit blues East Coast blues Kansas City blues Louisiana blues Memphis blues New Orleans blues Piedmont blues St. Louis blues Swamp blues Texas blues West Coast blues Hill country blues
other topics	Blues genres Blues musicians Blues scale Jug band Origins }}

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that, for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd) in relation to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound.

The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments. Blues can be subdivided into several subgenres ranging from country to urban blues that were more or less popular during different periods of the 20th century. Best known are the Delta, Piedmont, Jump and Chicago blues styles. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues-rock evolved.

The term "the blues" refers to the "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness; an early use of the term in this sense is found in George Colman's one-act farce ''Blue Devils'' (1798). Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to since 1912, when Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" became the first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood.

Form

The blues form is a cyclic musical form which repeating progression of chords mirrors the call and response scheme ubiquitous in African and African-American music. During the first decades of the 20th century, blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a particular chord progression. With the popularity of early performers, such as Bessie Smith, use of the twelve-bar blues spread across the music industry during the 1920s and 30s. Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include "How Long Blues", "Trouble in Mind", and Big Bill Broonzy's "Key to the Highway". There are also 16-bar blues, as in Ray Charles's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and in Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are also encountered occasionally, as with the 9-bar progression in "Sitting on Top of the World" by Howlin Wolf.

{| style="float:right;" class="wikitable" | style="width:200px; text-align:center;"|Chords played over a 12-bar scheme: | style="width:200px; text-align:center;"|Chords for a blues in C: |- |align=center| {| cellspacing="1" class="wikitable" |- style="text-align:center;" | style="width:50px;"| I | style="width:50px;"| I or IV | style="width:50px;"| I | style="width:50px;"| I7 |- style="text-align:center;" | style="width:50px;"| IV | style="width:50px;"| IV | style="width:50px;"| I | style="width:50px;"| I7 |- style="text-align:center;" | style="width:50px;"| V | style="width:50px;"| V or IV | style="width:50px;"| I | style="width:50px;"| I or V |} |align=center|

|}

The basic 12-bar lyric framework of a blues composition is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a 4/4 time signature. The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to the degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround, marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the 11th bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as a break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords.

Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven". Blues seven chords add to the harmonic chord a note with a frequency in a 7:4 ratio to the fundamental note. At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale. For convenience or by necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord.

In melody, blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third, fifth and seventh of the associated major scale. These specialized notes are called the ''blue'' or ''bent notes''. These scale tones may replace the natural scale tones, or they may be added to the scale, as in the case of the minor blues scale, in which the flattened third replaces the natural third, the flattened seventh replaces the natural seventh and the flattened fifth is added between the natural fourth and natural fifth. While the 12-bar harmonic progression had been intermittently used for centuries, the revolutionary aspect of blues was the frequent use of the flattened third, flattened seventh, and even flattened fifth in the melody, together with ''crushing''—playing directly adjacent notes at the same time (i.e., diminished second)—and ''sliding'', similar to using grace notes. The blue notes allow for key moments of expression during the cadences, melodies, and embellishments of the blues.

Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove. Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music. The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&B; wave that started in the mid 1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as "''dow'', da ''dow'', da ''dow'', da" or "''dump'', da ''dump'', da ''dump'', da": it consists of uneven, or "swung," eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. An example is provided by the following guitar tablature for the first four bars of a blues progression in E:

Lyrics

The lyrics of early traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times; it was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the so-called AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Two of the first published blues songs, "Dallas Blues" (1912) and "St. Louis Blues" (1914), were 12-bar blues featuring the AAB structure. W. C. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lines are often sung following a pattern closer to a rhythmic talk than to a melody. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative. The singer voiced his or her "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times." This melancholy has led to the suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook to life when they were enslaved.

The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927:

: "Backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time : I said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time : And I can't get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine."

However, although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy as well:

: "Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, : Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, : It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying the hell out of me."

:: From Big Joe Turner's "Rebecca", a compilation of traditional blues lyrics

Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style. Tampa Red's classic "Tight Like That" (1928) is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being "tight" with someone coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Explicit contents led to blues sometimes being called dirty blues. Lyrical content of music became slightly simpler in post war-blues which focused almost exclusively on relationship woes or sexual worries. Many lyrical themes that frequently appeared in pre-war blues such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and dry periods were less common in post-war blues.

Author Ed Morales has claimed that Yoruba mythology played a part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues" as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua, the orisha in charge of the crossroads". However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. Many seminal blues artists such as Charley Patton or Skip James had several religious songs or spirituals in their repertoires. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to the spirituals.

History

Origins

The first publication of blues sheet music was Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" in 1912; W. C. Handy's "The Memphis Blues" followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues". But the origins of the blues date back to some decades earlier, probably around 1890. They are very poorly documented, due in part to racial discrimination within American society, including academic circles, and to the low literacy rate of the rural African American community at the time. Chroniclers began to report about blues music in Southern Texas and Deep South at the dawn of the 20th century. In particular, Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi and Gate Thomas reported very similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the remembrance of Jelly Roll Morton, who declared having heard blues for the first time in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey, who remembered her first blues experience the same year in Missouri; and W.C. Handy, who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum, who published a large anthology of folk songs in the counties of Lafayette, Mississippi and Newton, Georgia between 1905 and 1908. The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed "proto-blues" by Paul Oliver, were made by Odum at the very beginning of the 20th century for research purposes. They are now utterly lost. Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert. Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon, who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress. Gordon's successor at the Library was John Lomax. In the 1930s, together with his son Alan, Lomax made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to the huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts. A record of blues music as it existed before the 1920s is also given by the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly or Henry Thomas who both performed archaic blues music. All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from the twelve-, eight-, or sixteen-bar.

The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known. The first appearance of the blues is often dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863, This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and the expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the early 1900s development of blues music as a move from group performances to a more individualized style. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon the individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine states that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did."

There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because the genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performances. However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure." A form of this pre-blues was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers, expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content".

Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Though blues, as it is now known, can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and the African call-and-response tradition, transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar, the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots, and the influences are faint and tenuous. In particular, no specific African musical form can be identified as the single direct ancestor of the blues. However many blues elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa. That blue notes pre-date their use in blues and have an African origin is attested by English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's "A Negro Love Song", from his ''The African Suite for Piano'' composed in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes. The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of the American South in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary. The banjo seems to be directly imported from western African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as the Igbo played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof, Fula and Madinka). However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon.

Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals, including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. The style also was closely related to ragtime, which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music".

The musical forms and styles that are now considered the "blues" as well as modern "country music" arose in the same regions during the 19th century in the southern United States. Recorded blues and country can be found from as far back as the 1920s, when the popular record industry developed and created marketing categories called "race music" and "hillbilly music" to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country," except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define “the blues” narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric strategies thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta. Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as “songsters” rather than “blues musicians.” The notion of blues as a separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. “Blues” became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners.

The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The origins of spirituals go back much further than the blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns, in particular those of Isaac Watts, which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. It was the low-down music played by the rural Blacks. Depending on the religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered as a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, at the time rural Black music began to get recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used very similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart.

Pre-war blues

The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues" by "Baby" F. Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews), "Dallas Blues" by Hart Wand and "The Memphis Blues" by W. C. Handy.

Handy was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been a part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the "St. Louis Blues".

In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by the Theater Owners Bookers Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation, Okeh Records, and Paramount Records, began to record African American music.

As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter, Jimmie Rodgers (country singer), Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in the African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues. The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished 'city' or urban blues.

Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only a banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House. Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in the southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver, Tampa Red, "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style.

The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee, was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. Performers such as Frank Stokes, Sleepy John Estes, Robert Wilkins, Joe McCoy, Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard, fiddle, kazoo or mandolin. Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement, which blended country music and electric blues. City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in the 1920s, among them Mamie Smith, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Victoria Spivey. Mamie Smith, more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African-American to record a blues in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to the back of a room." Smith would "...sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr. A important label of this era was the chicagoean Bluebird label. Before WWII, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 50s with people such as Charles Brown, and even Nat "King" Cole.

Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-Woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio (Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis). Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines, who "linked the propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand." The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles.

Another development in this period was big band blues. The "territory bands" operating out of Kansas City, the Bennie Moten orchestra, Jay McShann, and the Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's "One O'Clock Jump" and "Jumpin' at the Woodside" and boisterous "blues shouting" by Jimmy Rushing on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and "Sent for You Yesterday". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller's "In the Mood". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from the boogie woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner, based in Kansas City, Missouri, influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Dallas-born T-Bone Walker, who is often associated with the California blues style, performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s.

1950s

The transition from country to urban blues, that began in the 1920s, had always been driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms and the associated move of the rural Blacks to urban areas, the Great Migration. The long boom in the aftermath of World War II induced a massive migration of the African American population, the Second Great Migration, which was accompanied by a significant increase of the real income of the urban Blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The name race record disappeared and was succeeded by Rhythm and Blues. This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Chart. This marketing strategy reinforced trends within urban blues music such as the progressive electrification of the instruments, their amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle, that became ubiquitous in R&B.; This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music which, together with Jazz and Gospel music, became a component of the R&B; wave.

After World War II and in the 1950s, new styles of electric blues music became popular in cities such as Chicago, Memphis, Detroit and St. Louis. Electric blues used electric guitars, double bass (slowly replaced by bass guitar), drums, and harmonica played through a microphone and a PA system or a guitar amplifier. Chicago became a center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success: "I Can't Be Satisfied". Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by the Mississippi blues style, because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style is characterized by the use of electric guitar, sometimes slide guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. J. T. Brown who played in Elmore James's bands, or J. B. Lenoir's also used saxophones, but these were used more as "backing" or rhythmic support than as solo instruments.

Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) are well known harmonica (called "harp" by blues musicians) players of the early Chicago blues scene. Other harp players such as Big Walter Horton were also influential. Muddy Waters and Elmore James were known for their innovative use of slide electric guitar. Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters were known for their deep, "gravelly" voices.

Bassist and composer Willie Dixon played a major role on the Chicago blues scene. He composed and wrote many standard blues songs of the period, such as "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (both penned for Muddy Waters) and, "Wang Dang Doodle" and "Back Door Man" for Howlin' Wolf. Most artists of the Chicago blues style recorded for the Chicago-based Chess Records and Checker Records labels. Smaller blues labels of this era included Vee-Jay Records and J.O.B. Records. During the early 1950s, the dominating Chicago labels were challenged by Sam Phillips' Sun Records company in Memphis, which recorded B. B. King and Howlin' Wolf before he moved to Chicago in 1960. After Phillips discovered Elvis Presley in 1954, the Sun label turned to the rapidly expanding white audience and started recording mostly rock 'n' roll.

In the 1950s, blues had a huge influence on mainstream American popular music. While popular musicians like Bo Diddley both recording for Chess, were influenced by the Chicago blues, their enthusiastic playing styles departed from the melancholy aspects of blues. Chicago blues also influenced Louisiana's zydeco music, with Clifton Chenier using blues accents. Zydeco musicians used electric solo guitar and cajun arrangements of blues standards.

Overseas, in England, electric blues took root there during a much acclaimed Muddy Waters tour. Waters, unsuspecting of his audience's tendency towards skiffle, an acoustic, softer brand of blues, turned up his amp and started to play his Chicago brand of electric blues. Although the audience was largely jolted by the performance, the performance influenced local musicians such as Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies to emulate this louder style, inspiring the British invasion of the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds.

In the late 1950s, a new blues style emerged on Chicago's West Side pioneered by Magic Sam, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush on Cobra Records. The 'West Side Sound' had strong rhythmic support from a rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums and as pefected by Guy, Freddie King, Magic Slim and Luther Allison was dominated by amplified electric lead guitar.

Other blues artists, such as John Lee Hooker had influences not directly related to the Chicago style. John Lee Hooker's blues is more "personal", based on Hooker's deep rough voice accompanied by a single electric guitar. Though not directly influenced by boogie woogie, his "groovy" style is sometimes called "guitar boogie". His first hit, "Boogie Chillen", reached #1 on the R&B; charts in 1949.

By the late 1950s, the swamp blues genre developed near Baton Rouge, with performers such as Lightnin' Slim, Slim Harpo, Sam Myers and Jerry McCain around the producer J. D. "Jay" Miller and the Excello label. Strongly influenced by Jimmy Reed, Swamp blues has a slower pace and a simpler use of the harmonica than the Chicago blues style performers such as Little Walter or Muddy Waters. Songs from this genre include "Scratch my Back", "She's Tough" and "I'm a King Bee". Alan Lomax's recordings of Mississippi Fred McDowell would eventually bring him wider attention on both the blues and folk circuit, with McDowell's droning style influencing North Mississippi hill country blues musicians.

1960s and 1970s

By the beginning of the 1960s, genres influenced by African American music such as rock and roll and soul were part of mainstream popular music. White performers had brought African-American music to new audiences, both within the US and abroad. However, the blues wave that brought artists such as Muddy Waters to the foreground had stopped. Bluesmen such as Big Bill Broonzy and Willie Dixon started looking for new markets in Europe. Dick Waterman and the blues festivals he organized in Europe played a major role in propagating blues music abroad. In the UK, bands emulated US blues legends, and UK blues-rock-based bands had an influential role throughout the 1960s.

Blues performers such as John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters continued to perform to enthusiastic audiences, inspiring new artists steeped in traditional blues, such as New York–born Taj Mahal. John Lee Hooker blended his blues style with rock elements and playing with younger white musicians, creating a musical style that can be heard on the 1971 album ''Endless Boogie''. B. B. King's virtuoso guitar technique earned him the eponymous title "king of the blues". In contrast to the Chicago style, King's band used strong brass support from a saxophone, trumpet, and trombone, instead of using slide guitar or harp. Tennessee-born Bobby "Blue" Bland, like B. B. King, also straddled the blues and R&B; genres. During this period, Freddie King and Albert King often played with rock and soul musicians (Eric Clapton, Booker T & the MGs) and had a major influence on those styles of music.

The music of the Civil Rights and Free Speech movements in the US prompted a resurgence of interest in American roots music and early African American music. As well as Jimmi Bass Music festivals such as the Newport Folk Festival brought traditional blues to a new audience, which helped to revive interest in prewar acoustic blues and performers such as Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, and Reverend Gary Davis. commented on political issues such as racism or Vietnam War issues, which was unusual for this period. His ''Alabama Blues'' recording had a song that stated:

I never will go back to Alabama, that is not the place for me (2x) You know they killed my sister and my brother, and the whole world let them peoples go down there free

White audiences' interest in the blues during the 1960s increased due to the Chicago-based Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the British blues movement. The style of British blues developed in the UK, when bands such as The Animals, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, and Cream and Irish musician Rory Gallagher performed classic blues songs from the Delta or Chicago blues traditions. Many of Led Zeppelin's earlier hits were renditions of traditional blues songs.

The British and blues musicians of the early 1960s inspired a number of American blues rock fusion performers, including Canned Heat, the early Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, The J. Geils Band, Ry Cooder, and The Allman Brothers Band. One blues rock performer, Jimi Hendrix, was a rarity in his field at the time: a black man who played psychedelic rock. Hendrix was a skilled guitarist, and a pioneer in the innovative use of distortion and feedback in his music. Through these artists and others, blues music influenced the development of rock music.

Santana, which was originally called the ''Carlos Santana Blues Band'', also experimented with Latin-influenced blues and blues-rock music around this time. At the end of the 1950s appeared the very bluesy Tulsa Sound merging rock'n'roll, jazz and country influences. This particular music style started to be broadly popularized within the 1970s by J.J. Cale and the cover versions performed by Eric Clapton of "After Midnight" and "Cocaine".

In the early 1970s, The Texas rock-blues style emerged, which used guitars in both solo and rhythm roles. In contrast with the West Side blues, the Texas style is strongly influenced by the British rock-blues movement. Major artists of the Texas style are Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and ZZ Top. These artists all began their musical journey in the 1970s, but they did not achieve major international success until the next decade.

1980s to the 2000s

Since the 1980s, there has been a resurgence of interest in the blues among a certain part of the African-American population, particularly around Jackson, Mississippi and other deep South regions. Often termed "soul blues" or "Southern soul", the music at the heart of this movement was given new life by the unexpected success of two particular recordings on the Jackson-based Malaco label: Z. Z. Hill's ''Down Home Blues'' (1982) and Little Milton's ''The Blues is Alright'' (1984). Contemporary African-American performers who work this vein of the blues include Bobby Rush, Denise LaSalle, Sir Charles Jones, Bettye LaVette, Marvin Sease and Peggy Scott-Adams.

During the 1980s, blues also continued in both traditional and new forms. In 1986, the album ''Strong Persuader'' revealed Robert Cray as a major blues artist. The first Stevie Ray Vaughan recording, ''Texas Flood'', was released in 1983, and the Texas-based guitarist exploded onto the international stage. 1989 saw a revival of John Lee Hooker's popularity with the album ''The Healer''. Eric Clapton, known for his performances with the Blues Breakers and Cream, made a comeback in the 1990s with his album ''Unplugged'', in which he played some standard blues numbers on acoustic guitar. However, beginning in the 1990s, digital multitrack recording and other technological advances and new marketing strategies that include video clip production have increased costs, and challenge the spontaneity and improvisation that are an important component of blues music.

In the 1980s and 1990s, blues publications such as ''Living Blues'' and ''Blues Revue'' began to be distributed, major cities began forming blues societies, outdoor blues festivals became more common, and more nightclubs and venues for blues emerged.

In the 1990s, largely ignored hill country blues gained minor recognition in both blues and alternative rock music circles with North Mississippi artists R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. Blues performers explored a range of musical genres, as can be seen, for example, from the broad array of nominees of the yearly Blues Music Awards, previously named W. C. Handy Awards or of the Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary and Traditional Blues Album. The Bilboard Blues Album chart monitors and therefore provides an overview over the current blues production. Contemporary blues music is nurtured by several blues labels such as: Alligator Records, Ruf Records, Severn Records, Chess Records (MCA), Delmark Records, NorthernBlues Music, Fat Possum Records and Vanguard Records (Artemis Records). Some labels are famous for their rediscovering and remastering of blues rarities such as Arhoolie Records, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (heir of Folkways Records) and Yazoo Records (Shanachie Records).

Musical impact

Blues musical styles, forms (12-bar blues), melodies, and the blues scale have influenced many other genres of music, such as rock and roll, jazz, and popular music. Prominent jazz, folk or rock performers, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Bob Dylan have performed significant blues recordings. The blues scale is often used in popular songs like Harold Arlen's "Blues in the Night", blues ballads like "Since I Fell for You" and "Please Send Me Someone to Love", and even in orchestral works such as George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Concerto in F". Gershwin's second "Prelude" for solo piano is an interesting example of a classical blues, maintaining the form with academic strictness. The blues scale is ubiquitous in modern popular music and informs many modal frames, especially the ladder of thirds used in rock music (for example, in "A Hard Day's Night"). Blues forms are used in the theme to the televised ''Batman'', teen idol Fabian's hit, "Turn Me Loose", country music star Jimmie Rodgers' music, and guitarist/vocalist Tracy Chapman's hit "Give Me One Reason".

R&B; music can be traced back to spirituals and blues. Musically, spirituals were a descendant of New England choral traditions, and in particular of Isaac Watts's hymns, mixed with African rhythms and call-and-response forms. Spirituals or religious chants in the African-American community are much better documented than the "low-down" blues. Spiritual singing developed because African-American communities could gather for mass or worship gatherings, which were called camp meetings.

Early country bluesmen such as Skip James, Charley Patton, Georgia Tom Dorsey played country and urban blues and had influences from spiritual singing. Dorsey helped to popularize Gospel music. Gospel music developed in the 1930s, with the Golden Gate Quartet. In the 1950s, soul music by Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and James Brown used gospel and blues music elements. In the 1960s and 1970s, gospel and blues were these merged in soul blues music. Funk music of the 1970s was influenced by soul; funk can be seen as an antecedent of hip-hop and contemporary R&B.;

thumb|Duke Ellington straddled the big band and bebop genres. Ellington extensively used the blues form.

Before World War II, the boundaries between blues and jazz were less clear. Usually jazz had harmonic structures stemming from brass bands, whereas blues had blues forms such as the 12-bar blues. However, the jump blues of the 1940s mixed both styles. After WWII, blues had a substantial influence on jazz. Bebop classics, such as Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time", used the blues form with the pentatonic scale and blue notes. Bebop marked a major shift in the role of jazz, from a popular style of music for dancing, to a "high-art," less-accessible, cerebral "musician's music". The audience for both blues and jazz split, and the border between blues and jazz became more defined.

The blues' 12-bar structure and the blues scale was a major influence on rock and roll music. Rock and roll has been called "blues with a backbeat"; Carl Perkins called rockabilly "blues with a country beat". Rockabillies were also said to be 12-bar blues played with a bluegrass beat. "Hound Dog", with its unmodified 12-bar structure (in both harmony and lyrics) and a melody centered on flatted third of the tonic (and flatted seventh of the subdominant), is a blues song transformed into a rock and roll song. Jerry Lee Lewis's style of rock and roll was heavily influenced by the blues and its derivative boogie woogie. His style of music was not exactly rockabilly but it has been often called real rock and roll (this is a label he shares with several African American rock and roll performers).

Early country music was infused with the blues. Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican, Bob Wills, Bill Monroe and Hank Williams have all described themselves as blues singers and their music has a blues feel that is different to the country pop of Eddy Arnold. A lot of the 1970s-era "outlaw" country music by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings also borrowed from the blues. When Jerry Lee Lewis returned to country after the decline of 1950s style rock and roll, he sang his country with a blues feel and often included blues standards on his albums. Many early rock and roll songs are based on blues: "That's All Right Mama", "Johnny B. Goode", "Blue Suede Shoes", "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On", "Shake, Rattle, and Roll", and "Long Tall Sally". The early African American rock musicians retained the sexual themes and innuendos of blues music: "Got a gal named Sue, knows just what to do" ("Tutti Frutti", Little Richard) or "See the girl with the red dress on, She can do the Birdland all night long" ("What'd I Say", Ray Charles). The 12-bar blues structure can be found even in novelty pop songs, such as Bob Dylan's "Obviously Five Believers" and Esther and Abi Ofarim's "Cinderella Rockefella".

In popular culture

Like jazz, rock and roll, heavy metal music, hip hop music, reggae, country music, and pop music, blues has been accused of being the "devil's music" and of inciting violence and other poor behavior. In the early 20th century, the blues was considered disreputable, especially as white audiences began listening to the blues during the 1920s. In the early twentieth century, W.C. Handy was the first to popularize blues-influenced music among non-black Americans.

During the blues revival of the 1960s and '70s, acoustic blues artist Taj Mahal and legendary Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins wrote and performed music that figured prominently in the popularly and critically acclaimed film ''Sounder'' (1972). The film earned Mahal a Grammy nomination for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture and a BAFTA nomination. Almost 30 years later, Mahal wrote blues for, and performed a banjo composition, claw-hammer style, in the 2001 movie release "Songcatcher", which focused on the story of the preservation of the roots music of Appalachia.

Perhaps the most visible example of the blues style of music in the late 20th century came in 1980, when Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi released the film ''The Blues Brothers''. The film drew many of the biggest living influenciers of the Rhythm and blues genre together, such as Ray Charles, James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, and John Lee Hooker. The band formed also began a successful tour under the Blues Brothers marquee. 1998 brought a sequel, ''Blues Brothers 2000'' that, while not holding as great a critical and financial success, featured a much larger number of blues artists, such as B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Erykah Badu, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Charlie Musselwhite, Blues Traveller, Jimmy Vaughn, Jeff Baxter.

In 2003, Martin Scorsese made significant efforts to promote the blues to a larger audience. He asked several famous directors such as Clint Eastwood and Wim Wenders to participate in a series of documentary films for PBS called ''The Blues''. He also participated in the rendition of compilations of major blues artists in a series of high-quality CDs. Blues guitarist and vocalist Keb' Mo' performed his blues rendition of "America, the Beautiful" in 2006 to close out the final season of the television series ''The West Wing''.

See also

20th century music

African American culture

All Music Guide to the Blues

Blues dance

Blues guitar playing

Blues Hall of Fame

Blues in New Zealand

Canadian blues

Country blues

Fife and drum blues

List of blues musicians

List of blues standards

List of British blues musicians

List of Number-one Blues Albums

List of train songs

Mississippi Blues Trail

Museum of African American Music

Notes

References

Bransford, Steve. "Blues in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley" ''Southern Spaces'' 2004

Further reading

Brown, Luther. "Inside Poor Monkey's", ''Southern Spaces'', June 22, 2006.

External links

The American Folklife Center's Online Collections and Presentations

American Music: An almost comprehensive collection of historical blues recordings.

The Blues Radio Series

The Blue Shoe Project - Nationwide (U.S.) Blues Education Programming

"The Blues", documentary series by Martin Scorsese, aired on PBS

The Blues Foundation

The Delta Blues Museum

The Music in Poetry — Smithsonian Institution lesson plan on the blues, for teachers

The Influence Of Blues Guitar On Modern Music

Category:African American music Category:African-American culture Category:American styles of music Category:Blues styles Category:Musical forms Category:Radio formats

af:Blues ar:بلوز an:Blues bar:Blues be:Блюз be-x-old:Блюз bs:Blues bg:Блус ca:Blues cs:Blues cy:Y felan da:Blues de:Blues et:Bluus el:Μπλουζ es:Blues eo:Bluso eu:Blues fa:موسیقی بلوز hif:Blues fr:Blues fy:Blues ga:Na Gormacha gd:The Blues gl:Blues gu:બ્લૂઝ ko:블루스 hy:Բլյուզ hi:ब्लूज़ hr:Blues id:Blues is:Blús it:Blues he:בלוז jv:Blues kn:ಬ್ಲೂಸ್‌ ka:ბლუზი sw:Blues la:Blues lv:Blūzs lt:Bliuzas hu:Blues ml:ബ്ലൂസ് ms:Blues mn:Блюз nah:Blues nl:Blues ja:ブルース no:Blues nn:Blues oc:Blues mrj:Блюз pnb:بلوز pap:Blues pcd:Blues nds:Blues pl:Blues pt:Blues ro:Muzică blues ru:Блюз rue:Блуз sc:Blues sq:Blues scn:Blues simple:Blues sk:Blues sl:Blues sr:Bluz sh:Blues fi:Blues sv:Blues ta:புளூஸ் te:బ్లూస్ th:บลูส์ tr:Blues uk:Блюз vi:Blues wa:Blouze war:Blues yo:Orin blues zh-yue:怨曲 bat-smg:Bliozos zh:藍調

''The Blue Danube'' is the common English title of ''An der schönen blauen Donau'', Op. 314 (German for ''At the Beautiful Blue Danube''), a waltz by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, composed in 1866. Originally performed 13 February 1867 at a concert of the ''Wiener Männergesangsverein'' (Vienna Men's Choral Association), it has been one of the most consistently popular pieces of music in the classical repertoire. Its initial performance was only a mild success however and Strauss is reputed to have said "The devil take the waltz, my only regret is for the coda—I wish that had been a success!"

After the original music was written, the words were added by the Choral Association's poet, Joseph Weyl. Strauss later added more music, and Weyl needed to change some of the words. Strauss adapted it into a purely orchestral version for the World's Fair in Paris that same year, and it became a great success in this form. The instrumental version is by far the most commonly performed today. An alternate text by Franz von Gernerth, ''Donau so blau'' (''Danube so blue''), is also used on occasion.

The sentimental Viennese connotations of the piece have made it into a sort of unofficial Austrian national anthem. It is a traditional encore piece at the annual Vienna New Year's Concert. The first few bars are also the interval signal of Österreichischer Rundfunk's overseas programs. On New Year's Eve, the waltz is traditionally broadcast by all public-law television and radio stations exactly at midnight.

When Strauss's stepdaughter, Alice von Meyszner-Strauss, asked the composer Johannes Brahms to sign her autograph-fan, he wrote down the first bars of ''The Blue Danube'', but adding "Leider nicht von Johannes Brahms" ("Alas! not by Johannes Brahms").

The piece's popularity has been bolstered, as it became famous for its prominent use in the highly influential Stanley Kubrick film ''2001: A Space Odyssey''. In the movie, the piece is used to accompany a lengthy scene in which a Pan Am spaceplane is seen docking with a space station, as well as its trip to the Moon. Its use is, perhaps, intended to create a parallel between the intricate docking procedure and the role of two dancers in a waltz. The piece is also used to accompany the film's closing credits. The movie's use of this piece has led to further use in pastiches of it.

Composition notes

The work commences with an extended introduction in the key of A major with shimmering (tremolo) violins and a horn spelling out the familiar waltz theme, answered by staccato wind chords, in a subdued mood. It rises briefly into a loud passage but quickly dies down into the same restful nature of the opening bars. A contrasting and quick phrase in D major anticipates the waltz before three quiet downward-moving bass notes "usher in" the first principal waltz melody.

The first waltz theme is familiar gently rising triad motif in cellos and horns in the tonic D major, accompanied by the harp; the Viennese waltz beat is accentuated at the end of each 3-note phrase. The Waltz 1A triumphantly ends its rounds of the motif, and waltz 1B follows in the same key; the genial mood is still apparent.

Waltz 2A glides in quietly (still in D major) before a short contrasting middle section in B-flat major. The entire section is repeated.

A more dour waltz 3A is introduced in G major before a fleeting eighth-note melodic phrase (waltz 3B). A loud Intrada (introduction) is then played. Waltz 4A starts off in a romantic mood (F major) before a more joyous waltz 4B in the same key.

After another short Intrada in A, cadencing in F-sharp minor, sonorous clarinets spell out the poignant melody of waltz 5A in A. Waltz 5B is the climax, punctuated by cymbal crashes. Each of these may be repeated at the discretion of the performer.

The coda recalls earlier sections (3A and 2A) before furious chords usher in a recap of the romantic Waltz 4A. The idyll is cut short as the waltz hurries back to the famous waltz theme 1A again. This statement is cut short, however, by the final codetta: a variation of 1A is presented, connecting to a rushing eighth-note passage in the final few bars: repeated tonic chords underlined by a snare drum roll and a bright-sounding flourish.

A typical performance lasts around 10 minutes, with the seven-minute main piece, followed by a three-minute coda.

Instrumentation

The Blue Danube is scored for the following orchestra: ;Woodwinds :2 Flutes (Fl. 2 doubling Piccolo) :2 Oboes :2 Clarinets in C :2 Bassoons

;Brass :4 Horns in F :2 Trumpets in F :Bass Trombone :Tuba ;Percussion :Timpani :Bass drum :Triangle :Snare drum

;Strings :Harp :Violins I, II :Violas :Violoncellos :Double Basses

Choral version

''The Beautiful Blue Danube'' was first written as a song for a carnival choir (for bass and tenor), with rather satirical lyrics (Austria having just lost the war with Prussia). The original title was also referring to a poem about the Danube in the poet Karl Isidor Beck's hometown, Baja in Hungary, and not in Vienna. Later Franz von Gernerth wrote new, more "official-sounding" lyrics:

{| |- |lang=de|Donau so blau, so schön und blau, durch Tal und Au wogst ruhig du hin, dich grüßt unser Wien, dein silbernes Band knüpft Land an Land, und fröhliche Herzen schlagen an deinem schönen Strand.

Weit vom Schwarzwald her eilst du hin zum Meer, spendest Segen allerwegen, ostwärts geht dein Lauf, nimmst viel Brüder auf: Bild der Einigkeit für alle Zeit! Alte Burgen seh'n nieder von den Höh'n, grüssen gerne dich von ferne und der Berge Kranz, hell vom Morgenglanz, spiegelt sich in deiner Wellen Tanz.

Die Nixen auf dem Grund, die geben's flüsternd kund, was Alles du erschaut, seit dem über dir der Himmel blaut. Drum schon in alter Zeit ward dir manch' Lied geweiht; und mit dem hellsten Klang preist immer auf's Neu' dich unser Sang.

Halt' an deine Fluten bei Wien, es liebt dich ja so sehr! Du findest, wohin du magst zieh'n, ein zweites Wien nicht mehr! Hier quillt aus voller Brust der Zauber heit'rer Lust, und treuer, deutscher Sinn streut aus seine Saat von hier weithin.

Du kennst wohl gut deinen Bruder, den Rhein, an seinen Ufern wächst herrlicher Wein, dort auch steht bei Tag und bei Nacht die feste treue Wacht. Doch neid' ihm nicht jene himmlische Gab', bei dir auch strämt reicher Segen herab, und es schützt die tapfere Hand auch unser Heimatland!

D'rum laßt uns einig sein, schliesst Brüder, fest den Reih'n, froh auch in trüber Zeit, Muth, wenn Gefahr uns dräut, Heimat am Donaustrand, bist uns'rer Herzen Band, dir sei für alle Zeit Gut und Blut geweiht!

Das Schifflein fährt auf den Wellen so sacht, still ist die Nacht, die Liebe nur wacht, der Schiffer flüstert der Liebsten ins Ohr, dass längst schon sein Herz sie erkor. O Himmel, sei gnädig dem liebenden Paar, schutz' vor Gefahr es immerdar! Nun fahren dahin sie in seliger Ruh', Schifflein, far' immer nur zu!

Junges Blut, frischer Muth, o wie glücklich macht, dem vereint ihr lacht! Lieb und Lust schwellt die Brust, hat das Größte in der Welt vollbracht.

Nun singt ein fröhliches seliges Lied, das wie jauchzend die Lüfte durchzieht, von den Herzen laut widerklingt und ein festes Band um uns schlingt.

Frei und treu in Lied und Tat, bringt ein Hoch der Wienerstadt, die auf's Neu' erstand voller Pracht und die Herzen erobert mit Macht.

Und zum Schluß bringt noch einen Gruß uns'rer lieben Donau dem herrlichen Fluß. Was der Tag uns auch bringen mag, Treu' und Einigkeit soll uns schützen zu jeglicher Zeit! |Danube so blue, so bright and blue, through vale and field you flow so calm, our Vienna greets you, your silver stream through all the lands you merry the heart with your beautiful shores.

Far from the Black Forest you hurry to the sea giving your blessing to everything. Eastward you flow, welcoming your brothers, A picture of peace for all time! Old castles looking down from high, greet you smiling from their steep and craggy hilltops, and the mountains' vistas mirror in your dancing waves.

The mermaids from the riverbed, whispering as you flow by, are heard by everything under the blue sky above. The noise of your passing is a song from old times and with the brightest sounds your song leads you ever on.

Stop your tides at Vienna, it loves you so much! Whenever you might look you will find nowhere like Vienna! Here pours a full chest the charms of happy wishes, and heartfelt German wishes are flown away on your waters.

You know very well your brother, the Rhine, on its banks grows a magnificent wine, there is also, day and night, the fixed and faithful watch. But envy him not those heavenly gifts by you, too, many blessings stream down and the brave hand protects our homeland!

Therefore let us be united, joined brothers, in strong ranks, happy in troubled times; Brave, when danger threatens us, Home on the Danube beach, are the hearts of our band, To thee for all time Good and blood are consecrated!

The boat travels on the waves so softly, still is the night, love watching only the sailor whispers in the lover's ear, that his heart long ago she owned. O Heaven, have mercy on the loving couple, protect them from danger there forever! Now they pass on in blissful repose, Boat, sail always on!

Young blood fresh courage, O how happy, it unites laughter! Love and passion fills the breast -- it's the greatest in the world.

Now sing a cheerful and blessed song, the jubilation as the air permeates echoed loudly by the heart and tie a band around us.

Free and faithful in song and deed, Bring a height to Vienna city bought it on the new full glory and conquered with force.

And in conclusion brings even a greeting to our love of the beautiful Danube River. Whatever the day may bring us, Loyalty and unity is to protect us all the time! |}

Notes

References

Lloyd, Norman, ''The Golden Encyclopedia of Music'', New York: Golden Press, a division of Western Publishing, Inc., 1968.

External links

Category:1867 compositions Category:Waltzes by Johann Strauss II Category:Danube Category:Compositions set in Vienna

ar:الدانوب الأزرق de:An der schönen blauen Donau es:Danubio azul eo:Valso de la Danubo fr:An der schönen blauen Donau it:Sul bel Danubio blu hu:Kék Duna keringő arz:الدانوب الازرق nl:An der schönen blauen Donau ja:美しく青きドナウ no:An der schönen blauen Donau pl:Nad pięknym modrym Dunajem pt:Danúbio Azul ro:Dunărea albastră ru:На прекрасном голубом Дунае fi:Tonava kaunoinen sv:An der schönen blauen Donau th:เดอะบลูดานูบ tr:Güzel Mavi Tuna zh:蓝色多瑙河

Herbert von Karajan (; 5 April 1908 – 16 July 1989) was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years. Although his work was not universally admired, he is generally considered to have been one of the greatest conductors of all time, and he was a dominant figure in European classical music from the 1960s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.

Biography

Genealogy

The Karajans are said to have originally been Aromanian, or Greek, from the region of Macedonia. His great-great-grandfather, Geòrgios Johannes Karajànnis, was born in Kozani, a town in the Ottoman province of Rumelia (present West Macedonia in Greece), leaving for Vienna in 1767, and eventually Chemnitz, Saxony. He and his brother participated in the establishment of Saxony's cloth industry, and both were ennobled for their services by Frederick Augustus III on 1 June 1792, thus the prefix "von" to the family name. The surname Karajànnis became ''Karajan''. Herbert's family from the maternal side, through his grandfather who was born in the village of Mojstrana, Duchy of Carniola (today in Slovenia), had Slovene origins according to a modern genealogical research, thus contrasting with or clarifying the traditional view which expressed a Serbian or simply a Slavic origin of his mother.

Early years

Karajan was born in Salzburg, Austria-Hungary, as Heribert Ritter von Karajan. He was a child prodigy at the piano. From 1916 to 1926, he studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where he was encouraged to concentrate on conducting by his teacher, who detected his exceptional promise in that regard.

In 1929, he conducted ''Salome'' at the Festspielhaus in Salzburg and from 1929 to 1934 Karajan served as first Kapellmeister at the Stadttheater in Ulm. In 1933 Karajan made his conducting debut at the Salzburg Festival with the ''Walpurgisnacht Scene'' in Max Reinhardt's production of ''Faust''. It was also in 1933 that von Karajan became a member of the Nazi party, a fact for which he would later be criticised.

In Salzburg in 1934, Karajan led the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time, and from 1934 to 1941, he was engaged to conduct operatic and symphony-orchestra concerts at the Theater Aachen.

Karajan's career was given a significant boost in 1935 when he was appointed Germany's youngest ''Generalmusikdirektor'' and performed as a guest conductor in Bucharest, Brussels, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Paris. In 1937 Karajan made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Berlin State Opera, conducting ''Fidelio''. He then enjoyed a major success at the State Opera with ''Tristan und Isolde''. In 1938, his performance there of the opera was hailed by a Berlin critic as ''Das Wunder Karajan'' (the Karajan miracle). The critic asserted that Karajan's "success with Wagner's demanding work ''Tristan und Isolde'' sets himself alongside Furtwängler and de Sabata, the greatest opera conductors in Germany at the present time". Receiving a contract with Deutsche Grammophon that same year, Karajan made the first of numerous recordings, conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin in the overture to ''The Magic Flute''. On 26 July 1938, he married his first wife, operetta singer Elmy Holgerloef. They would divorce in 1942.

On 22 October 1942, at the height of the war, Karajan married his second wife, Anna Maria "Anita" Sauest, born Gütermann. She was the daughter of a well-known manufacturer of yarn for sewing machines. Having had a Jewish grandfather, she was considered a ''Vierteljüdin'' (one-quarter Jewish woman). By 1944, Karajan was, according to his own account, losing favor with the Nazi leadership; but he still conducted concerts in wartime Berlin on 18 February 1945. A short time later, in the closing stages of the war, he fled Germany with Anita for Milan, relocating his family to Italy with the assistance of Victor de Sabata. Karajan and Anita divorced in 1958.

Karajan was discharged by the Austrian denazification examining board on 18 March 1946, and resumed his conducting career shortly thereafter.

Postwar years

In 1946, Karajan gave his first post-war concert in Vienna with the Vienna Philharmonic, but he was banned from further conducting activities by the Soviet occupation authorities because of his Nazi party membership. That summer he participated anonymously in the Salzburg Festival.

On 28 October 1947, Karajan gave his first public concert following the lifting of the conducting ban. With the Vienna Philharmonic and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, he performed Johannes Brahms' ''A German Requiem'' for a gramophone production in Vienna.

In 1949, Karajan became artistic director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna. He also conducted at La Scala in Milan. His most prominent activity at this time was recording with the newly-formed Philharmonia Orchestra in London, helping to build them into one of the world's finest. Starting from this year, Karajan began his lifelong attendance at the Lucerne Festival.

In 1951 and 1952 he conducted at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.

In 1955 he was appointed music director for life of the Berlin Philharmonic as successor to Wilhelm Furtwängler. From 1957 to 1964 he was artistic director of the Vienna State Opera. Karajan was closely involved with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Salzburg Festival, where he initiated the Easter Festival, which would remain tied to the Berlin Philharmonic's Music Director after his tenure.

On 22 October 1958 he married his third wife, French model Eliette Mouret; they became parents of two daughters, Isabel and Arabel.

He continued to perform, conduct and record prolifically until his death in Anif in 1989, mainly with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic.

Karajan and the compact disc

Karajan played an important role in the development of the original compact disc digital audio format. He championed this new consumer playback technology, lent his prestige to it and appeared at the first press conference announcing the format. The maximum playing time of CD prototypes was sixty minutes but the final specification enlarged the disc size and extended the capacity to seventy-four minutes. There are various stories regarding this, one of which is that this was due to Karajan's insistence that the format have sufficient capacity to contain Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on a single disc. Kees Schouhamer Immink, a Philips research engineer directly involved with the invention of the CD, denies the Beethoven connection.

In 1980 von Karajan conducted the first recording ever to be commercially released on CD: Richard Strauss's ''Eine Alpensinfonie'' (1915), produced by Deutsche Grammophon.

Through the 1980s von Karajan re-recorded many works such as Beethoven's Nine Symphonies with Deutsche Grammophon's CD booklet introduction saying that he wanted to preserve his legacy digitally. He also pioneered the Digital Compact Cassette though that format was not particularly successful. His 2007 "Gold" compilation contains the longest known running time disc. Disc two of this collection clocks in at 81:21.

Nazi Party membership

Karajan joined the Nazi Party in Salzburg on 8 April 1933; his membership number was 1,607,525. In June 1933, the Nazi Party was outlawed by the Austrian government. However, Karajan's membership was valid until 1939. In that year the former Austrian members were verified by the general office of the Nazi Party. Karajan's membership was declared invalid but his accession to the party was retroactively determined to have been on 1 May 1933 in Ulm, with membership number: 3,430,914.

Karajan's prominence increased from 1933 to 1945 which led to speculation that he joined the Nazis purely and only to advance his music career. Critics such as Jim Svejda have pointed out that other prominent conductors, such as Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber and Arturo Toscanini, fled from fascist Europe at the time.

However, British music critic Richard Osborne noted that among the many significant conductors who continued to work in Germany throughout the war years—Wilhelm Furtwängler, Ernest Ansermet, Carl Schuricht, Karl Böhm, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss and Karl Elmendorff—Karajan was one of the youngest and thus one of the least advanced in his career.

Musicianship

There is widespread agreement that Herbert von Karajan had a special gift for extracting beautiful sounds from an orchestra. Opinion varies concerning the greater aesthetic ends to which ''The Karajan Sound'' was applied. The American critic Harvey Sachs criticized the Karajan approach as follows:

Karajan seemed to have opted instead for an all-purpose, highly refined, lacquered, calculatedly voluptuous sound that could be applied, with the stylistic modifications he deemed appropriate, to Bach and Puccini, Mozart and Mahler, Beethoven and Wagner, Schumann and Stravinsky ... many of his performances had a prefabricated, artificial quality that those of Toscanini, Furtwängler, and others never had... most of Karajan's records are exaggeratedly polished, a sort of sonic counterpart to the films and photographs of Leni Riefenstahl.

However, it has been argued by commentator Jim Svejda and others that Karajan's pre-1970 manner did not sound polished as it is later alleged to have become.

Two reviews from the ''Penguin Guide to Compact Discs'' can be quoted to illustrate the point.

Concerning a recording of Wagner's ''Tristan und Isolde'', a canonical Romantic work, the Penguin authors wrote "Karajan's is a sensual performance of Wagner's masterpiece, caressingly beautiful and with superbly refined playing from the Berlin Philharmonic" and it is listed in first place on pages 1586–7 of the 1999 ''Penguin Guide to Compact Discs''; 2005, p. 1477.

About Karajan's recording of Haydn's "Paris" symphonies, the same authors wrote, "big-band Haydn with a vengeance ... It goes without saying that the quality of the orchestral playing is superb. However, these are heavy-handed accounts, closer to Imperial Berlin than to Paris ... the Minuets are very slow indeed ... These performances are too charmless and wanting in grace to be whole-heartedly recommended."

The ''same'' Penguin Guide does nevertheless give the highest compliments to Karajan's recordings of the selfsame Haydn's two oratorios, ''The Creation'' and ''The Seasons''. However, respected Haydn scholar H.C. Robbins Landon wrote the notes for Karajan's recordings of Haydn's 12 London symphonies and states clearly that Karajan's recordings are among the finest he knows.

Regarding twentieth century music, Karajan had a strong preference for conducting and recording pre-1945 works (Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Bartók, Sibelius, Richard Strauss, Puccini, Pizzetti, Honegger, Prokofiev, Debussy, Ravel, Hindemith, Nielsen and Stravinsky), but he did record Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 (1953) twice and did premiere Carl Orff's ''De Temporum Fine Comoedia'' in 1973.

Awards and honours

Karajan was the recipient of multiple honours and awards. In 1977 he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. On 21 June 1978 he received the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from Oxford University. He was honored by the "Médaille de Vermeil" in Paris, the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, the Olympia Award of the Onassis Foundation in Athens and the UNESCO International Music Prize. He received two Gramophone Awards for recordings of Mahler's Ninth Symphony and the complete Parsifal recordings in 1981. He received the Eduard Rhein Ring of Honor from the German Eduard Rhein Foundation in 1984. In 2002, the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize was founded in his honour; in 2003 Anne-Sophie Mutter, who had made her debut with Karajan in 1977, became the first recipient of this award.

Books

Discography

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9; recorded 1976–77; Deutsche Grammophon

Mozart's Requiem; recorded 1994; Deutsche Grammophon

Quotes

Explaining why he preferred conducting the Berlin Philharmonic to the Vienna Philharmonic: "If I tell the Berliners to step forward, they do it. If I tell the Viennese to step forward, they do it. But then they ask why."

"Those who have achieved all their aims probably set them too low" http://www.karajan.org

Isaiah Berlin referred to Karajan as "a genius, with a whiff of sulphur about him".

See also

Berlin State Opera

Raffaello de Banfield

Notes

External links

Official Herbert von Karajan website, Vienna

1963 Stereo Review interview

Tribute site to Herbert von Karajan

Obituary by the New York Times

A range of opinions from readers of ''Gramophone'' magazine

František Sláma (musician) Archive. More on the history of the Czech Philharmonic between the 1940s and the 1980s: ''Conductors''

Elaine Madlener Papers: correspondence and notes for an unfinished Karajan biography at Newberry Library

Video

Karajan conducting Beethoven's 5th Symphony, rare old 1966 video

Karajan conducting Verdi's Requiem: Dies Irae

Karajan conducting Dvorak's 9th Symphony

Category:Articles with inconsistent citation formats Category:1908 births Category:1989 deaths Category:Austrian conductors (music) Category:Music directors (opera) Category:Music directors of the Vienna State Opera Category:Opera managers Category:General Directors of the Vienna State Opera Category:Music directors of the Berlin State Opera Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists Category:Mozarteum University of Salzburg alumni Category:Austrian Nazis Category:Austrian nobility Category:Austrian people of Aromanian descent Category:Austrian people of Slovenian descent Category:Austrian people of Greek descent Category:People from Salzburg Category:Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

ar:هيربرت فون كارايان an:Herbert von Karajan roa-rup:Herbert von Karajan be:Герберт фон Караян bg:Херберт фон Караян ca:Herbert von Karajan cs:Herbert von Karajan da:Herbert von Karajan de:Herbert von Karajan el:Χέρμπερτ φον Κάραγιαν es:Herbert von Karajan eo:Herbert von Karajan fa:هربرت فون کارایان fr:Herbert von Karajan gl:Herbert von Karajan ko:헤르베르트 폰 카라얀 hr:Herbert von Karajan is:Herbert von Karajan it:Herbert von Karajan he:הרברט פון קאראיין ka:ჰერბერტ ფონ კარაიანი la:Herbertus Karajan lv:Herberts fon Karajans hu:Herbert von Karajan ms:Herbert von Karajan nl:Herbert von Karajan ja:ヘルベルト・フォン・カラヤン no:Herbert von Karajan oc:Herbert von Karajan pms:Herbert von Karajan pl:Herbert von Karajan pt:Herbert von Karajan ro:Herbert von Karajan ru:Караян, Герберт фон simple:Herbert von Karajan sk:Herbert von Karajan sl:Herbert von Karajan sr:Херберт фон Карајан sh:Herbert von Karajan fi:Herbert von Karajan sv:Herbert von Karajan th:เฮอร์เบิร์ต ฟอน คารายาน tr:Herbert von Karajan uk:Герберт фон Караян war:Herbert von Karajan zh:赫伯特·冯·卡拉扬

Karajan, or Caragiani, Karagianni, Karayiannis, Karagianis, is a surname. Notable persons with that surname include:

Eftychia Karagianni, Greek water polo player

Georgios Karayiannis, Greek Army officer

Herbert von Karajan (1908–1989), Austrian conductor, great-grandson of Theodor von Karajan

Ioan D. Caragiani, Romanian folklorist

Martha Karagianni, Greek actress

Maurine Karagianis, Canadian politician

Pete Karagianis, American chess player

Vaios Karagiannis (born 1968), Greek football player

Category:Austro-Hungarian people Category:Austrian nobility Category:Surnames Category:Austrian families Category:People from Salzburg

de:Karajan nds:Karajan

Johann Strauss II (October 25, 1825 – June 3, 1899), also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son (), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely then responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century.

Strauss was born in St. Ulrich (now a part of Neubau), the son of Johann Strauss I, another composer of dance music. His father did not wish him to become a composer, but rather a banker; however, the son defied his father's wishes, and went on to study music with the composer Joseph Drechsler and the violin with Anton Kollmann, the ballet répétiteur of the Vienna Court Opera. Strauss had two younger brothers, Josef and Eduard Strauss, who became composers of light music as well, although they were never as well-known as their elder brother.

Some of Johann Strauss's most famous works include ''The Blue Danube'', ''Kaiser-Walzer'', ''Tales from the Vienna Woods'', the ''Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka'', and the ''Pizzicato Polka''. Among his operettas, ''Die Fledermaus'' and ''Der Zigeunerbaron'' are the most well-known.

Early life

Strauss was born in St. Ulrich near Vienna (now a part of Neubau), Austria, on October 25, 1825, to the famous composer Johann Strauss I. His father did not want him to become a musician but rather a banker; nevertheless, Strauss Junior studied the violin secretly as a child with the first violinist of his father's orchestra, Franz Amon. When his father discovered his son secretly practising on a violin one day, he gave him a severe whipping, saying that he was going to beat the music out of the boy. It seems that rather than trying to avoid a Strauss rivalry, the elder Strauss only wanted his son to escape the rigors of a musician's life. It was only when the father abandoned his family for a mistress, Emilie Trampusch, that the son was able to concentrate fully on a career as a composer with the support of his mother.

Strauss studied counterpoint and harmony with theorist Professor Joachim Hoffmann, who owned a private music school. His talents were also recognized by composer Joseph Drechsler, who taught him exercises in harmony. His other violin teacher, Anton Kollmann, who was the ballet répétiteur of the Vienna Court Opera, also wrote excellent testimonials for him. Armed with these, he approached the Viennese authorities to apply for a license to perform. He initially formed his small orchestra where he recruited his members at the ''Zur Stadt Belgrad'' tavern, where musicians seeking work could be hired easily.

Debut as a composer

Johann Strauss I's influence over the local entertainment establishments meant that many of them were wary of offering the younger Strauss a contract for fear of angering the father. Strauss Jr. was able to persuade the Dommayer's Casino in Hietzing, a suburb of Vienna, to allow him to perform. The elder Strauss, in anger at his son's disobedience, and at that of the proprietor, refused to ever play at the Dommayer's Casino again, which had been the site of many of his earlier triumphs.

Strauss made his debut at Dommayer's in October 1844, where he performed some of his first works, such as the waltzes "Sinngedichte", Op. 1 and "Gunstwerber", Op. 4 and the polka "Herzenslust", Op. 3. Critics and the press were unanimous in their praise for Strauss's music. A critic for ''Der Wanderer'' commented that "Strauss’s name will be worthily continued in his son; children and children’s children can look forward to the future, and three-quarter time will find a strong footing in him."

Despite the initial fanfare, Strauss found his early years as a composer difficult, but he soon won over audiences after accepting commissions to perform away from home. The first major appointment for the young composer was his award of the honorary position of "Kapellmeister of the 2nd Vienna Citizen's Regiment", which had been left vacant following Joseph Lanner's death two years before.

Vienna was racked by a bourgeois revolution on February 24, 1848, and the intense rivalry between father and son became much more apparent. Johann Jr. decided to side with the revolutionaries. It was a decision that was professionally disadvantageous, as the Austrian royalty twice denied him the much coveted 'KK Hofballmusikdirektor' position, which was first designated especially for Johann I in recognition of his musical contributions. Further, the younger Strauss was also arrested by the Viennese authorities for publicly playing "La Marseillaise", but was later acquitted. The elder Strauss remained loyal to the monarchy, and composed his "Radetzky March", Op. 228 (dedicated to the Habsburg field marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz), which would become one of his best-known compositions.

When the elder Strauss died from scarlet fever in Vienna in 1849, the younger Strauss merged both their orchestras and engaged in further tours. Later, he also composed a number of patriotic marches dedicated to the Habsburg Emperor Franz Josef I, such as the "Kaiser Franz-Josef Marsch" Op. 67 and the "Kaiser Franz Josef Rettungs Jubel-Marsch" Op. 126, probably to ingratiate himself in the eyes of the new monarch, who ascended to the Austrian throne after the 1848 revolution.

Career advancements

Strauss Jr. eventually surpassed his father's fame, and became one of the most popular waltz composers of the era, extensively touring Austria–Hungary, Poland, and Germany with his orchestra. He applied for the KK Hofballmusikdirektor ''Music Director of the Royal Court Balls'' position, which he eventually attained in 1863, after being denied several times before for his frequent brushes with the local authorities.

In 1853, due to constant mental and physical demands, Strauss suffered a nervous breakdown. He took a seven-week vacation in the countryside in the summer of that year, on the advice of doctors. Johann's younger brother Josef was persuaded by his family to abandon his career as an engineer and take command of Johann's orchestra in the interim.

In 1855, Strauss accepted commissions from the management of the Tsarskoye-Selo Railway Company of Saint Petersburg to play in Russia for the Vauxhall Pavilion at Pavlovsk in 1856. He would return to perform in Russia every year until 1865.

Later, in the 1870s, Strauss and his orchestra toured the United States, where he took part in the Boston Festival at the invitation of bandmaster Patrick Gilmore and was the lead conductor in a 'Monster Concert' of over 1000 performers, performing his "Blue Danube" waltz, amongst other pieces, to great acclaim.

Marriages

Strauss married the singer Jetty Treffz in 1862, and they remained together until Jetty's death in 1878. Six weeks after her death, Strauss married the actress Angelika Dittrich. Angelika was not a fervent supporter of his music, and their differences in status and opinion, and especially her indiscretion, led him to seek a divorce.

Strauss was not granted a divorce by the Roman Catholic church, and therefore changed religion and nationality, and became a citizen of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in January 1887. Strauss sought solace in his third wife Adele Deutsch, whom he married in August 1882. She encouraged his creative talent to flow once more in his later years, resulting in many famous compositions, such as the operettas ''Der Zigeunerbaron'' and ''Waldmeister'', and the waltzes "Kaiser-Walzer" Op. 437, "Kaiser Jubiläum" Op. 434, and "Klug Gretelein" Op. 462.

Musical rivals and admirers

Although Strauss was the most sought-after composer of dance music in the latter half of the 19th century, stiff competition was present in the form of Karl Michael Ziehrer and Émile Waldteufel; the latter held a commanding position in Paris. Phillip Fahrbach also denied the younger Strauss the commanding position of the ''KK Hofballmusikdirektor'' when the latter first applied for the post. The German operetta composer Jacques Offenbach, who made his name in Paris, also posed a challenge to Strauss in the operetta field.

Strauss was admired by other prominent composers: Richard Wagner once admitted that he liked the waltz "Wein, Weib und Gesang" Op. 333. Richard Strauss (unrelated to the Strauss family), when writing his ''Rosenkavalier'' waltzes, said in reference to Johann Strauss, "How could I forget the laughing genius of Vienna?"

Johannes Brahms was a personal friend of Strauss; the latter dedicated his waltz "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!" ("Be Embraced, You Millions!"), Op. 443, to him. A story is told in biographies of both men that Strauss's wife Adele approached Brahms with a customary request that he autograph her fan. It was usual for the composer to inscribe a few measures of his best-known music, and then sign his name. Brahms, however, inscribed a few measures from the "Blue Danube", and then wrote beneath it: "Unfortunately, NOT by Johannes Brahms."

Stage works

The most famous of Strauss' operettas are ''Die Fledermaus'', ''Eine Nacht in Venedig'', and ''Der Zigeunerbaron''. Notwithstanding their general lack of modern popularity, there are many dance pieces drawn from themes of his operettas, such as "Cagliostro-Walzer" Op. 370 (from ''Cagliostro in Wien''), "O Schöner Mai" Walzer Op. 375 (from ''Prinz Methusalem''), "Rosen aus dem Süden" Walzer Op. 388 (from ''Das Spitzentuch der Königin''), and "Kuss-Walzer" op. 400 (from ''Der lustige Krieg''), that have survived obscurity and become well-known. Strauss also wrote an opera, ''Ritter Pázmán'', and was in the middle of composing a ballet, ''Aschenbrödel'', when he died in 1899.

Death and legacy

Strauss was diagnosed with plueral pneumonia in the spring of 1899, and died in Vienna, at the age of 73. He was buried in the Zentralfriedhof. At the time of his death, he was still composing his ballet ''Aschenbrödel''.

Strauss's music is now regularly performed at the annual ''Neujahrskonzert'' of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as a result of the efforts by Clemens Krauss who performed a special all-Strauss programme in 1929 with the Viennese orchestra. Many distinguished Strauss interpreters include Willi Boskovsky, who carried on the "Vorgeiger" tradition of conducting with violin in hand, as is the Strauss family custom, as well as Herbert von Karajan and the opera conductor Riccardo Muti. In addition, the Wiener Johann Strauss Orchester, which was formed in 1966, pays tribute to the touring orchestras which once made the Strauss family so famous.

Most of the Strauss works that are performed today may once have existed in a slightly different form, as Eduard Strauss destroyed much of the original Strauss orchestral archives in a furnace factory in Vienna's Mariahilf district in 1907. Eduard, then the only surviving brother of the three, took this drastic precaution after agreeing to a pact between himself and brother Josef that whoever outlived the other was to destroy their works. The measure was intended to prevent the Strauss family's works from being claimed by another composer. This may also have been fueled by Strauss's rivalry with another of Vienna's popular waltz and march composers, Karl Michael Ziehrer.

Portrayals in the media

The lives of the Strauss dynasty members and their world-renowned craft of composing Viennese waltzes are also briefly documented in several television adaptations, such as ''The Strauss Family'' (1972), ''The Strauss Dynasty'' (1991) and ''Strauss, the King of 3/4 Time'' (1995). Many other films used his works and melodies, and several films have been based upon the life of the musician, the most famous of which is called ''The Great Waltz'' (1938). Alfred Hitchcock made a low-budget biographical film of Strauss in 1933 called ''Waltzes from Vienna''. After a trip to Vienna, Walt Disney was inspired to create four feature films. One of those was ''The Waltz King'', a loosely adapted biopic of Johann Strauss, which aired as part of the Wonderful World of Disney in the U.S. in 1963. In Mikhail Bulgakov's 1940 (published 1967) novel, ''The Master and Margarita'', Johann Strauss conducts the orchestra during Satan's Great Ball at the invitation of Behemoth.

"A Corny Concerto" (1943), a Warner Bros cartoon, directed by Robert Clampett with animation by Robert McKimson features music that was composed by Johann Strauss, and is a parody of Walt Disney's 1940 "Fantasia". The cartoon is narrated by Elmer Fudd, parodying Deems Taylor's appearance in Fantasia.

Works

See List of operettas by Johann Strauss II and List of compositions by Johann Strauss II.

Notes

References

Gänzl, Kurt. ''The Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre'' (3 Volumes). New York: Schirmer Books, 2001.

Traubner, Richard. ''Operetta: A Theatrical History''. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1983.

Jacob, H. E. ''Johann Strauss, Father and Son: A Century of Light Music''. The Greystone Press, 1940.

External links

European Archive Copyright free LP recording of several (abridged) works by Johann Strauss II, at the European Archive (for non-American viewers only).

A complete list of Strauss's compositions

Johann Strauss Gallery

List of Strauss's stage works with date, theatre information and links

www.kreusch-sheet-music.net Free Scores by Strauss

Category:19th-century Austrian people Category:Opera composers Category:Romantic composers Category:Viennese composers Category:Ballet composers Category:People from Neubau Category:Burials at the Zentralfriedhof Category:1825 births Category:1899 deaths Johann Strauss II

ar:يوهان شتراوس الابن an:Johann Strauss (fillo) be:Ёган Штраўс, сын bs:Johann Strauss mlađi bg:Йохан Щраус (син) ca:Johann Strauss II cs:Johann Strauss mladší cy:Johann Strauss II da:Johann Strauss den yngre de:Johann Strauss (Sohn) et:Johann Strauß (poeg) el:Γιόχαν Στράους ο νεότερος es:Johann Strauss (hijo) eo:Johann Strauß (filo) eu:Johann Strauss (semea) fa:یوهان اشتراوس (پسر) fr:Johann Strauss II gl:Johann Strauss (fillo) ko:요한 슈트라우스 2세 hy:Յոհան Շտրաուս hr:Johann Strauss mlađi id:Johann Strauss II is:Johann Strauss II it:Johann Strauss (figlio) he:יוהאן שטראוס (הבן) krc:Штраус, Иоганн (джаш) ka:იოჰან შტრაუსი (შვილი) la:Ioannes Strauss (iunior) lv:Johans Štrauss II lt:Johanas Štrausas hu:Ifj. Johann Strauss mk:Јохан Штраус (помладиот) mr:योहान स्ट्रॉस दुसरा arz:يوهان شتراوس الابن mn:II Иоханн Штраус my:စထရောက်ဂျေ nl:Johann Strauss jr. ja:ヨハン・シュトラウス2世 no:Johann Strauss d.y. pl:Johann Strauss (syn) pt:Johann Strauss (filho) ro:Johann Strauss (fiul) qu:Johann Strauss II ru:Штраус, Иоганн (сын) simple:Johann Strauss II sk:Johann Strauss mladší sl:Johann Strauss mlajši sr:Јохан Штраус млађи sh:Johann Strauss mlađi fi:Johann Strauss nuorempi sv:Johann Strauss d.y. tl:Johan Strauss II th:โยฮันน์ ชเตราสส์ ที่สอง tr:Johann Strauss II uk:Йоганн Штраус (син) vi:Johann Strauss II zh:小约翰·施特劳斯