Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II - Farewell to America Waltz

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• published: 01 Nov 2011
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In the immediate wake of Johann Strauss's sole visit to the United States of America in summer 1872, when he conducted on numerous occasions in Boston and New York, no less than seven publishers issued waltzes purportedly written by Vienna's Waltz King. Only two from the total of nine compositions published are known to have been performed by Strauss during his American trip - the Jubilee Waltz and the Manhattan Waltzes. It is a matter for conjecture whether the remaining works published were written by Strauss in America, or completed by him after his return to Vienna and submitted by post. A third possibility is that some of the publications had nothing to do with Strauss himself, but were compiled by opportunistic publishers anxious to benefit from Johann's visit and the attendant clamour for new Strauss music. Farewell to America, unlike its companion piece Greeting to America, is a pastiche waltz comprising melodies from previously published works by the Waltz King. Common to both works is a quotation from J. Stafford Smith's The Star-Spangled Banner - in Greeting to America it appears in the Introduction while in Farewell to America it features as a pianissimo statement in the Coda. The thematic material used for Farewell to America is drawn from the following published Strauss waltzes: Introduction - Introduction to Carnevals-Botschafter op. 270 Waltz 1A - theme 1A from Wiener Punschlieder op. 131 Waltz 1B - theme 1B from Spiralen op. 209 Waltz 2A - theme 2A from Gedankenflug op. 215 Waltz 2B - theme 2B from Gedankenflug op. 215 Waltz 3A - theme 1A from Controversen op. 191 Waltz 3B - theme 4B from Controversen op. 191 Waltz 4A - theme 5A from Promotionen op. 221 Waltz 4B - theme 2B from Petitionen op. 153 (Josef Strauss) Coda - 15 bars from Coda section of Feuilleton op. 293 - theme 1A from Wiener Punschlieder op. 131 - 24 bar Andante quotation from The Star-Spangled Banner (music: J. Stafford Smith) - final 15 bars from Coda of Carnevals-Botschafter, extended to 17 bars by insertion of 2 separate bars' rest The presence of a waltz theme by Josef Strauss (Waltz 4B) may possibly indicate that Farewell to America was compiled, not by Strauss himself, but by a house arranger for the publisher, Oliver Ditson. This possibility is given greater credence by the fact that many Strauss family compositions published outside Vienna merely credited authorship to "J.Strauss". An arranger unfamiliar with the Strauss catalogue of works might well have assumed that 'J.Strauss' was the famous Johann, rather than his younger brother. It is worthy of note that not one of the waltzes comprising Farewell to America is known to have featured in any of Johann's programmes in Boston or New York in 1872, and all date from the period 1853 to 1864. Especially interesting is the fact that the publisher, Oliver Ditson, who was one of the principal backers of the Boston Jubilee, was also the publisher of Dwight's Journal, a periodical which regularly denounced the festival as "humbug". The first piano edition of Farewell to America was registered with the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington in 1872 by the publishers, Oliver Ditson & Company of Boston. Since no orchestral material seems to have been published - at least, none has been found - this present recording features a reconstruction by the American conductor and composer Jerome D. Cohen, based on Ditson's piano edition of the waltz and on the original published sets of orchestral parts for the individual waltzes comprising it. In this form, Farewell to America was first performed by the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Rudolph Schlegel, at the Memorial Hall, Plymouth, Massachusetts on 1 April 1989. Johann and his wife, Jetty, prepared to bid 'Farewell to America' on 13 July 1872, bound for Bremerhaven, Baden-Baden and, eventually, Vienna. As they waited for the Nord-Deutsch Lloyd steamship Donau to depart, Johann spoke to a journalist for the New York Times. The interview, published under the heading "Departure of Johann Strauss for Europe", appeared in the paper the following day and read, in part: "Mr Strauss said that he bade farewell to the people of the United States with the kindest feelings. He should always remember this country with delight, especially the city of New York, of which he spoke very enthusiastically, calling it a 'second Paris'. He expressed a desire to once again publicly thank the press in general for the courtesy and goodwill it had invariably extended toward him since his advent at the Boston Jubilee".