Scherzi musicali

“Scherzi musicali” was the motto of the 2020 New Year’s Concert of the Bläserphilharmonie Mozarteum Salzburg, performed on Epiphany at the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg. This time the Austrian Waltz King Johann Strauss was joined by his Bavarian namesake Richard Strauss: marches and waltzes by Johann Strauss II met the waltz sequence from “Der Rosenkavalier” and “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks”, the scherzo “after the old rogue’s tune” first performed in 1895.

The programme found a kindred spirit of Till in Friedrich Gulda’s Concerto for Cello and Wind Orchestra, played by the Salzburg violinist Benjamin Schmid in a version for violin. Jazzy harmonies and rock sounds meet wind band music, classical forms from minuet to stretta and idyllic rustic tunes – there is even a yodel from the Attergau.

Johann Strauss’ rarely played waltz “Aus den Bergen” (From the Mountains) was written in 1864, the year Richard Strauss was born, during a guest engagement in Pavlovsk in Russia. With the overture to “Die Fledermaus” and, as encores, Josef Strauss’ polka “Die Soubrette” and the Radetzky March, the Bläserphilharmonie led the way into the new year with wit and charm. Except for Gulda’s concerto, all works were heard in arrangements for symphonic winds by Albert Schwarzmann.