By Terry Barfoot
MusicWeb International
26-Jul-2001
"Marco Polo's mammoth project to record all the music of the Strauss family takes another step forward with this issue of Volume 20 of the works of Josef Strauss.
Josef initially trained to be an engineer, and spent some time working with spinning machines, water mains and buildings construction. He even invented a cleaning machine for the streets of Vienna. It took some years for the family to persuade him to take over the direction of their orchestra, after his elder brother, Johann, had collapsed from exhaustion.
Josef's reluctance to commit himself to music stemmed from his lack of expertise on the violin. When he was finally cajoled into taking the platform he conducted with a baton instead of in the traditional Viennese fashion, as perpetuated by Willi Boskovsky, Lorin Maazel and others, of directing with the bow of the violin and joining in the playing whenever appropriate. Josef's latent inability was hidden from all by an iron self-discipline, and his music shows no sign of his deep depressions. His waltzes are full of romantic tenderness and his polkas have a brilliant rhythmic flair.
These strengths are certainly in evidence in this attractive programme which features some well known items alongside many others which are less famous. But all, particularly the lively polkas, are well worth hearing. The selection opens attractively with the direct appeal of the Liechtenstein March, whose rhythmic contour is pointed by the percussion, and Christian Pollack's choice of tempo is just right for emphasising this. Perhaps the best known of these pieces is the Delirien Waltz, whose main theme is one of the best tunes conceived by any member of the Strauss family. Pollack shapes it tastefully...and the Marco Polo recording is atmospheric...
On the whole it is the fast polkas which fare best, and some of them are terrific, revealing the composer's lively wit: the delightfully named Velocipede and the exciting Pele-mele are particularly good examples of Josef's art. Inevitably any composer who writes literally hundreds of pieces within a relatively restricted idiom will achieve highs and lows of invention, but Josef Strauss's technique is top-drawer, while his invention offers many delights. As an example of what can be found by exploring this repertoire, try the little-known Flattergeister Waltz, which contains a couple of really wonderful tunes."
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