Release Date: 12 January 1999
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 730099495622
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: WALDTEUFEL
Description
Emile Waldteufel(1837-1915) Famous WaltzesLike Johann Strauss, Emile Waldteufel came from a family of dancemusicians, being preceded in the business by his father Louis (1801-84) andbrother Leon (1832-84). Despite their Germanic surname, the family were French.This is explained by their German ancestry and the fact that they hailed fromAlsace, which despite strong German traditions had been fully integrated intoFrance since 1793.Emile Waldteufel was born in Strasbourg on 9th December 1837, just sevenweeks after the elder Johann Strauss gave his first concert on French soil inthat very city. When he was seven the family moved to Paris for his brotherLeon to take up a place as a violin student at the Paris Conservatoire. EmileWaldteufel was to live in Paris for the rest of his life, and he in turnstudied piano at the Conservatoire from 1853 to 1857, his classmates thereincluding Jules Massenet.Meanwhile the family dance orchestra was becoming one of the best-knownin Paris, increasingly in demand for Society balls during Napoleon III's SecondEmpire. In 1865 Emile was appointed court pianist to the Empress Eugenie insuccession to Joseph Ascher (composer of 'Alice, where art thou?'), performingat Court functions not only in Paris but in Biarritz and Compi?¿gne. From 1867the Waldteufel orchestra played at Napoleon III's magnificent Court balls atthe Tuileries.After the Franco-Prussian War the orchestra again presided at thePresidential balls at the ?ëlysee. Yet so far Emile Waldteufel's dances had beenknown only to a relatively limited Society audience. By the time internationalfame came he was almost forty. In October 1874 he happened to be playing at asoiree attended by the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. The Princecomplimented him on his waltz Manolo and agreed to help launch his musicin London. The result was a long-term publishing contract with the London firmof Hopwood & Crew. Since the firm was half-owned by Charles Coote, directorof Coote & Tinney's Band, the premier London dance orchestra, this alsogave access to the musical programmes of Queen Victoria's State Balls atBuckingham Palace. For several years Emile Waldteufel's music dominated theprogrammes there, generating him world-wide fame as he turned out a string ofworks that enjoyed huge popularity - including his best-known work LesPatineurs ('The Skaters') in 1882. His French publisher Durand, Schoenewerkwas now forced to buy the French rights to these works from Hopwood & Crew.So later did the German firm of Litolff, in whose editions the works sometimesappeared under slightly different German names. In addition, to suit Germaniccustom, in 1883 Litolff retrospectively began an opus numbering system. Thisbegan at 101 to make arbitrary allowance for early works, and for variousreasons many works were numbered out of chronological sequence, therebyproviding a source of much confusion ever since.Waldteufel appeared in London in 1885 and Berlin in 1889, and in 1890and 1891 he conduct
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
