TITLE: Wiener Philharmoniker Fanfare (1924)

COMPOSER: Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Richard Strauss was born into a world of wealth and music. His mother was the heiress to a Munich beer fortune, and his father, widely renowned as the greatest horn player of the day, was the principal horn of the Munich court orchestra. Richard's talent was carefully nurtured, and it manifested itself at an early age. He attended Wagner's premiere performance of Parsifal, at which his father played principal horn. Strauss was influenced by the music of Wagner and Brahms. His long life allowed him to experience both World Wars and witness the dawn of the atomic age. He was a major transitional composer from the Romantic period to modern music. The Serenade in Eb like the Wiener Philharmoniker Fanfare, composed in the same year, is one of his earlier works, that is representative of the late Romantic era. Strauss expressed an advanced harmonic vocabulary in all of his works. His opera, Salome, was one of the most influential operas of the 20th century, using risqué subject material and dissonance unmatched by his contemporaries. Most of his career was spent in the towns of Munich and Berlin.

MOVEMENTS: One

PERFORMANCE TIME: 2' 50"

INSTRUMENTATION: 24 Instruments

• 8 Horns, 6 Trumpets, 6 Trombones, 2 Tubas and 2 Timpani

EDITIONS: Rental

1. Boosey and Hawkes, 52 Cooper Square, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10003

COMPOSITION SKETCH AND MUSICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The Weiner Philharmoniker Fanfare (Vienna Philharmoniker Fanfare) was composed during 1924 for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. It was performed to open Vienna's first Carnival Ball on Shrove Tuesday, which in 1924 was on February 19. This was one of two fanfares written in that year, both scored for eight horns, six trumpets, six trombones, two tubas and timpani.

SELECTED RECORDINGS:

RELATED WEBSITES:

Strauss Page - http://people.unt.edu/~dmeek/rstrauss.html

Strauss Biography - http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/strauss_r.html