Straussiana

Erich Wolfgang Korngold, child prodigy and favoured Hollywood composer, is branded onto collective memory. His late work Straussiana is a reminiscence of his youth in Vienna. Today, it usually appears in concert programmes during the holiday season and as an encore piece, but it is also suitable for ballet performances.

An experienced arranger of operettas by Johann Strauss, Korngold dedicated his last orchestral work to the Waltz King: A kind of homage, Straussiana contains lesser known melodies from Fürstin Ninetta, Cagliostro in Wien and Ritter Pasman. Though it was originally conceived for school orchestra, Korngold eventually created a brilliant orchestration for symphony orchestra, bringing the distant fin de siècle flair of his native city of Vienna to the ever-booming metropolis of Los Angeles.