"From the Vienna Woods". During the Summer of 1861, the Strauss orchestra performed again under Josef’s baton in their original building, the Domeyer Casino in Hietzig, where Johann Strauss made his début in October 1844 as a conductor and composer. Hietzing was still a summer vacation spot, but a new, predominantly bourgeois public flocked to the once exclusive Domeyer Casino. For them Ferdinand Domeyer revived the tradition of the Rose Festivals, which had been common at the imperial court many years before. The tables, which almost seemed to collapse under the weight of the delicious food and drink, were surrounded by lush floral decorations. The Strauss orchestra had been engaged as the crowning touch of the festival; it was responsible for providing listening pleasure. Josef Strauss painstakingly planned specially selected programmes for the evenings at Domeyer’s. Urban and rural productions were represented in a colourful sequence, and his polka mazurkas offered a special exclusive mix, the originally Polish dances, with their marked rhythms, giving way to an Austrian Ländler. This was also the case with the polka mazurka Aus dem Wienerwald, which Josef Strauss performed for the first time at the Rose Festival on 8th July 1861 at Domeyer’s. Unlike his brothers Johann and Eduard, who never saw the outside of a Fiaker their entire lives, Josef Strauss was fairly familiar with the Wienerwald, the magnificent greenbelt in the South, West, and North of the imperial city on the Danube. With his wife Caroline he took long walks in his scarce free time, until he fell ill, but his polka mazurka Aus dem Wienerwald is neither a description of nature nor a musical portrait of Vienna’s surroundings. Rather, it is an elegant dance composition between mazurka and Ländler, a small but sparkling gem.

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Painting by Alois Arnegger

Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra, Kosice
Manfred Müssauer