Strauss The Gypsy Baron

The Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra is entitled to an exclusive right: in 1999 it got its own concert series in the Great Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. An honor for everyone, but of course for a Vienna orchestra! This album authentically documents a live concert of this outstanding ensemble with its second chief conductor Johannes Wildner. Numerous ostrich standards such as On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Viennese Blood or the overture to the Gypsy Baron, in this recording from May 2016, will feature rarely played gems from the compositional workshop of the Polka and Waltz kings, such as the magnificent orchestral fantasy Allegro Fantastique.

On February 5, 1960, Ernst von Dohnanyi, one of the great composers and piano virtuosi of the twentieth century, was busily engaged in the New York studios of Everest Records, making recordings of music by Beethoven. Shortly thereafter, he suffered a heart attack, followed by an attack of influenza. Four days later he was dead. Thus, the music he recorded for Everestrepresents the very last performances by this remarkable artist. At eighty-two, an age when most musicians have long since retired, Dohnanyi, as these recordings will attest, still possessed a commanding technique, an enormous tone and an authoritative interpretive style.

A Window into the Past - Great Composers of the Piano Music from the Golden-Age. Piano Music from the Golden Age by Peter Phillips.