10. Waltzing Through Europe: Johann Strauss (the Elder) in Hamburg and Altona in 1836
© Jörgen Torp, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0174.10
This chapter reflects upon the distribution of Waltz music in urban environments. As Derek B. Scott wrote in his Sounds of the Metropolis:
Unlike rural types of music, it was produced for urban leisure-hour consumption (urban social dance). That being so, it had the advantage of being more readily available for audiences elsewhere, since cities were beginning to share much in common in the nineteenth century.1
[…] Urban popular styles were not as marked by their places of production as rural styles. Cities were much more like each other than were rustic areas.2
The cities were connected via media and via traffic networks, as I have previously shown with regard to the importance of port cities around and before 1900.3 Nevertheless, each city also had its own particular places and environments, unique in the political world of that time. Therefore, it makes sense to investigate case studies that are historically and locally limited. This chapter does so, taking as its focus a two-week window in October 1836 in Hamburg (and Altona).
Introduction: Strauss’s Orchestra Tours in the 1830s
The Waltz is a music and dance genre that reached its zenith in nineteenth-century Vienna. Other, more rural regions may have played a role in the early development of the Waltz going back to the eighteenth century,4 but — at least in regard to the development of musical composition — the Waltzes of the Viennese composers became the most famous and popular throughout the nineteenth century, both in Vienna itself, and on an international level.
However, in the case of the Waltz, it would not be sufficient to write its history by only focusing on a certain region or city. One should also take into account its geographical dissemination. As happens readily with urban popular music and dance genres, the dissemination of the Waltz was widespread on an international, and, eventually, intercontinental level. In turn, this dissemination was comparatively quick, in accordance with the growing possibilities of a rapidly industrialising world.5
The Waltz dance and Waltz music may both have had their own, independent means of dissemination, but the dissemination of the music certainly influenced the dissemination of the dance and vice versa. The editing and printing of notated musical works developed quickly.6 Moreover, the live performances of musical pieces by touring musicians was also an evolving factor that had an important impact.
![](image/Fig.10.1.jpg)
Fig. 10.1 Josef Kriehuber, Johann Strauss the Elder, 1835. Lithograph. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Johann_Strauss_I#/media/File:Strau%C3%9FVaterLitho.jpg
Johann Strauss the Elder (1804–1849) began touring with a full orchestra, using new means of transport, such as the steam train and steam ship.7 The first of such travels was a short trip to Pest (Budapest) in early November 1833, which he meditated on immediately in his Op. 66: the Waltz Emlék Pestre — Erinnerung an Pesth.8 In the following years, he organised more distant and longer expeditions.
In October 1834, he travelled with an orchestra of thirty musicians to Berlin, where he played in several concerts and balls in November. On the way back to Vienna, he played in Leipzig, Dresden and Prague, arriving back in Vienna in mid-December.9
Leaving Vienna again the following year on 30 September 1835, with an orchestra of twenty-six musicians, Strauss toured Munich, Augsburg, Ulm, Stuttgart, Heilbronn, Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, Mannheim, Mainz, and Wiesbaden, Frankfurt am Main, Hanau, Offenbach, Darmstadt, again Frankfurt, and Heidelberg, Wurzburg, Nuremberg, Regensburg, and Passau, playing altogether at twelve balls and twenty-seven concerts, coming back via Linz to Vienna on 22 December.10
The journey of 1836 was even longer, beginning in early September in Prague, where he played during the festivities of the coronation of the (Habsburg) king and queen of Bohemia. From there, he and his orchestra travelled to Leipzig, Halle, Magdeburg, Brunswick, Hanover, Bremen, Hamburg, Oldenburg, again Bremen, Osnabruck, Munster, Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Düsseldorf, and Elberfeld, Cologne, Aachen, Liège, Brussels, and Antwerp, again Liège, and Aachen, Duren, Bonn, Koblenz, and Regensburg. He arrived back in Vienna on 30 December. During this voyage of four months, the largest number of events were held in Hamburg, Brussels, and The Hague.11
The longest tour — lasting over a year — was the one that established Strauss’s international fame. He and his orchestra toured to France (principally Paris), Belgium, and Great Britain (principally London). He left Vienna in early October 1837, and finished this long journey by returning to Vienna shortly before Christmas in December 1838.12 He arrived sick, having caught influenza during the cold winter days in December. He was very busy thereafter during Carnival season of 1839,13 but finally collapsed at the end of Carnival, and the doctors prescribed long-lasting and complete rest.14 He did not appear recovered until 1 May of that year, playing his new Taglioni-Walzer, Op. 110, in the dance hall of the famous venue Sperl,15 and in 1839 he took only a very short trip to Brno between 3–5 September.
In the following ten years, until his death in September 1849, Strauss continued touring, but never again as intensively and extensively as before. For that reason, one may focus on the time span from 1833 to 1838 (respectively from Op. 66 to 105 of his 251 numbered musical works), since this was the period in which the circulation of Waltz music through live events performed by Strauss and his orchestra was expanding.
Hamburg Newspaper Coverage of Strauss’s Visit in Hamburg, 1836
Strauss’s and his orchestra’s stay in Hamburg (and Altona) in 1836 is a good starting point to gain insight into the reception of Strauss’s music during his tours. Firstly, the two weeks between 2–16 October — when he and his orchestra musicians were guests in the hotel Zum König von England at Neuer Wall — are not too lengthy to outline here. Secondly, Hamburg was an important stop in his 1836 tour. It was, moreover, an important place for reflection on German as well as international affairs, and several newspapers and journals were based there, allowing one to retrieve information in respect to Strauss’s concerts, and their political and cultural circumstances.
The journals I reviewed for 1836 are as follows:16
- Staats und Gelehrte Zeitung des Hamburgischen unpartheiischen Correspondenten (henceforth abbreviated as Correspondent).17
- Neue Zeitung und Hamburgische Adreß-Comtoir-Nachrichten (henceforth abbreviated as NZ).18
- Priviligirte wöchentliche gemeinnützige Nachrichten von und für Hamburg (henceforth abbreviated as PgN).19
- Königlich priviligirte Altonaer Adreß-Comtoir-Nachrichten (henceforth abbreviated as Altonaer Nachrichten).20
- Der Freischütz.21
For Strauss’s second stay in Hamburg, in 1847, I consulted the following journals:
- Der Freischütz.
- Börsen-Halle: Hamburgische Abend-Zeitung für Handel, Schiffahrt und Politik.22
My intention in reading these old journals went slightly beyond a desire to explore the bare notes and comments on Strauss’s concerts. I was interested to find further information about the circumstances of the period and place, and also to acquire some information about the dance.23 However, although some notes regarding dance could be found in the journals, only very little can be related directly to Strauss’s balls. Finally, this study cannot be more than a pilot with respect to the overall topics of the interregional and international spread of Waltz music, set against the backdrop of the relation between the music and the performance of the dance.
According to Max Schönherr and Karl Reinöhl,24 the dates of concerts and balls given by Strauss and his orchestra in Hamburg and the nearby city of Altona in 1836 are the following:
Monday 3 October: Concert in the Apollosaal
Wednesday 5 October: Concert in the Museumssaal (Altona)
Thursday 6 October: Concert in the Apollosaal
Sunday 9 October: Ball in the hotel Zur alten Stadt London
Monday 10 October: Private concert in Ottensen (outside Altona)
Tuesday 11 October: Concert in the Stadtheater
Wednesday 12 October: Ball in the Museum of Altona
Thursday 13 October: Concert in the Stadtheater
Friday 14 October: Private concert in Ottensen
Saturday 15 October: Concert in the Stadttheater
These dates are generally reliable, as Schönherr and Reinöhl consulted the diary of Johann Thyam, a clarinettist in the Strauss orchestra in the years 1835 to 1838, who provided logistical information regarding the Strauss tours: ‘departure and arrival times, transportation customs and tax adjustments with respect to luggage and the time squandered as a result, accommodation in diverse cities and finally the staged concerts and balls as well as their venues’.25 Unfortunately, Thyam does not give information on the programmes, performers or attendance at the events.
![](image/Fig.10.2.jpg)
Fig. 10.2 Johann Poppel, Das Stadttheater in Hamburg (after C. A. Lill), published by Berendschenschen Buch & Kunsthandlung, Hamburg, c.1842. The Hamburg Stadttheater was one of the venues where Strauss played. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hamburg_Stadttheater_c1842.jpg
The programme of pieces performed in the Hamburg concerts of 1836 can be partly reconstructed from the longer reviews of concerts on 3 October26 and 11 October.27 Other newspaper entries inform us about the co-programme of theatre pieces, in which the concerts were embedded. Not every event of the ten listed above was announced beforehand in the journals. The daily newspapers (PgN and Correspondent) announced only the five concerts given in the Apollosaal and the Stadttheater in Hamburg. The Altonaer Nachrichten did not mention any appearance by Strauss, but included interesting announcements of dance teachers and of seasonal balls. Only Der Freischütz (No. 42, 15 October) lists the first eight of the ten concerts given by Strauss in Hamburg and Altona, and we find in this short article only a sentence about the two balls.
It is not possible to reconstruct from these sources a concrete plan of how the tour was organised, but they give a strong impression that much of the organisation was last-minute, indeed ‘improvised’, in comparison with current standards. It appears that Strauss had arranged beforehand for only one concert in the Apollosaal. This concert was announced at the end of September for 1 October, and postponed to 3 October, for Strauss arrived in Hamburg on 2 October. Later events, which led to a stay for two weeks altogether, were arranged during his stay, probably due to the success of the earlier concerts, although there were harsh comments directed at the organisers about how overcrowded these concerts were, especially the first concert: there were far too many tickets sold (sold at the set price of 2 marks and 8 schillings, in Hamburg currency).
Early information about Strauss’s tour was printed in Hamburg newspapers on Monday 26 September, in the PgN (No. 229, p. 4): a short message of one sentence saying that ‘the Waltz virtuoso Strauß gave a humoristisch musikalische Abend-Unterhaltung [humoristic-musical Evening-Entertainment] in Brunswick with his own orchestra on the 24th’.28 On the last page of this very issue (No. 229, p. 8) we are informed that ‘passing through to Holland and France capellmeister Strauß from Vienna will have the honour of giving a humoristisch musikalische Abend-Unterhaltung in the Apollosaal with his orchestra of twenty-nine musicians on Saturday 1 October. Bookings of tickets at 2 marks 8 schillings will be accepted in the music store of Mister A. Cranz’. On the following two days (Tuesday 27 September, No. 230, p. 8, and Wednesday 28 September, No. 231 p. 8), we find a similar message, adding that the concert will start at seven o’clock in the evening. The notice that Strauss was giving a concert in Hamburg, in nearly the same wording as in the PgN (No. 229), was published in the NZ from 26 and 27 September, and in the Correspondent (No. 230) from Wednesday 28 September. On Wednesday evening, the NZ reports that Strauss and his troupe turned up in Hanover on 26 September and wanted to give a concert there on 27 September. On Thursday 29 September, two of the daily newspapers PgN (No. 230, p. 8) and Correspondent (No. 231, p. 8) published a correction, signed by Strauss himself, apologising that ‘through unforeseeable travel hindrances with his orchestra’ it will be impossible to give the concert (Abend-Unterhaltung) on 1 October, but it ‘will take place irrevocably’ on Monday, 3 October. The PgN confirms the date of 3 October in the following numbers (Friday, Saturday, and finally Monday).
The Correspondent did not repeat the announcement of the concert before 3 October (No. 234). In the same issue, a longer article from Hanover was also published, written on 28 September, containing a report about Strauss’s there (in Hanover):29
The famous Waltz-king, Joh. Strauß, arrived suddenly like lightning in the night. Yesterday the whole city was on the move. In the evening nearly 1400 people (including the gallery) gathered for his concert in the hall of the Ballhof. There has never before been a gathering of such size in this country. What Strauss, with his orchestra, thirty members in number, accomplish, is close to incredible. His most original compositions deserve the attention of experts as well as laymen; his diverse subjects — such as sledgings, battles, military subjects, storms, tempests, etc. — are expressed in tonal paintings, and the music composed for the most abstract of subjects astonishes the audience for its faithful evocation, as well as for the skilful playing of the instruments. His Waltzes are unsurpassable. The applause was rapturous. Tomorrow, the 29th, he will give his second and last concert, then travel straightway to Bremen, where he will give a concert on the first of October. From there he proceeds to Hamburg, where he intends to arrive in the evening of October the second. The viceroy who for some weeks has been dwelling at his hunting château at Rothenkirchen, is expected here with his Serene family tomorrow for Strauss’s concert.30
The daily newspapers regularly published reports from hotels listing the arrival of guests (‘Angekommene Fremde’), as well as details concerning where these guests were travelling from. On Monday evening, 3 October, the NZ (No. 235, p. 4) briefly reported the arrival of ‘Mr. Johann Strauß, capellmeister, together with twenty-eight members, from Bremen, König von England’ (the name of the hotel where Strauss had checked in). On Tuesday morning, 4 October, the PgN (No. 236) gave the same notice. In the same issue, the PgN also announced a further Strauss concert in the Apollosaal on ‘Thursday, 5 October [sic]’. The Correspondent (No. 239) followed a day later, on Wednesday the fifth, with the announcement of the second concert in the Apollosaal taking place on Thursday the sixth. The same issue also informs its readers about the accommodation of ‘Mr. Johann Strauß, Kapellmeister from Vienna in Zum König von England’. Further, all the members of the orchestra are listed by name (p. 7).31 A day before, on 4 October, the NZ (No. 236, p. 4) afforded a short overview of the days of Strauss’s arrival and stay: Strauss had arrived on 2 October in Hamburg, ‘coming from Bremen, where he had given on October the first a concert in the Schauspiel-Haus’. He gave ‘his already-announced concert’ on 3 October in the Apollosaal, but the spacious venue ‘was not large enough’ for the quantity of people, who ‘wished to listen to the much-reviewed Waltz-king. Just as it was the case in Bremen […] the demand for tickets could not be met, even by half’. Nevertheless, Strauss and his company ‘won high praise for [their] performances from all those who attended’ the concert.
Finally, the article gives some insight into the somewhat improvisational way in which Strauss planned his tour:
About the departure of the artist from here to London, nothing seems to be determined. In any case, he will stay until the coming week, as, according to reports, he has entered into an engagement to appear with his musicians at a ball arranged at the ‘Hôtel zur Alten Stadt London’ next Sunday [9 October].32
For its part, PgN (No. 237, p. 4), in the issue dated Wednesday 5 October, includes one of the two long reviews of Strauss’s first given on Monday 3 October (the other one appeared in Der Freischütz on 8 October). The review can be divided into four parts.
The first is introductory, noting that finally Strauss, described here as ‘the well-known reformer of dance music’, appeared in Hamburg — ‘as has already been the case in so many other German cities’ — ‘to earn fame and money’. Strauss had the advantage of travelling with his own orchestra, so that he would not have to find local musicians in a foreign city. Moreover, his orchestra would have been so accustomed to playing together, that rehearsals would have seemed unnecessary, although the composition — according to the anonymous reviewer — were ‘music-entertainments’ of the ‘light, cheerful, pleasingly trifling’ kind, so that merely ripienists rather than virtuosos were needed to perform them.
The second part describes very roughly the programme of musical pieces in the concert played on 3 October, beginning with an overture from Auber’s opera Die Falschmünzer (in French: Le serment, ou Les faux-monnayeurs, which premiered in Paris on 1 October 1832); it was very well played, as the reviewer confirms, although this overture would have been ‘executed by our orchestra of the Stadttheater with similar precision’. The ‘Waltzes and potpourris’ that followed, with their ‘electric enchantment’, were nothing new, since these compositions had ‘naturally’ already made their way to Hamburg. The music of ‘esprit and humour’ would certainly improve by being conducted and played by the orchestra of the composer himself.
In the third part, the anonymous author of the article writes with ironic distance about a male singer (Mr. Stark) who sings the cavatina of Isabella in Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera Robert le diable (written and premiered in 1831) in high voice; and a female singer (Demoiselle Zöhrer) who sings the first aria of Georges Brown in Boieldieu’s opera La Dame blanche (of 1825) in a deep voice. The final section describes the unpleasant circumstances in which the concert took place: it was overbooked and extremely crowded, and those who finally got a place in the front hall could not see anything.
An appendix states that it is hard to understand why, in the early announcements, an important place like Hamburg was described only as a station to be passed in transit, and repeats the ‘irresponsible discourtesy’ (unverantwortliche Unhöflichkeit) towards the audience of selling tickets when there is not enough space for all, a mistake made not by ‘Mr. Strauss’s, but by his ‘local friends’ (in Hamburg).
In the same issue, Strauss announces another concert in the Apollosaal for Thursday 6 October. Additionally, it is stated that only a moderate number of tickets will be sold to avoid overcrowding.
Finally, the Wednesday newspaper (No. 237, p. 8) prints an anonymous query about whether it would not be agreeable to Strauss ‘to please the friends of his art with his ingenious recitals also in the Stadttheater’.
The review of the same concert in the weekly Freischütz is not written by an admirer of Strauss’s music, but gives an overview of pieces played in the programme. The reviews of these pieces are, however, very unbalanced in length, and the pieces of most interest for the study of Waltzes are only mentioned in one sentence, without further analysis or discussion. The author, writing under the pseudonym Wahrlieb, begins with a question in French: Tous les genres sont bons?33 He declares that he is not a friend of Strauss as a composer, nor of the Waltz genre at all. He lauds, however, the performance of the musicians playing together. He also mentions all the eight pieces on the programme, which was comprised of two sets of four numbers. The first part began with the overture of Auber’s opera Le serment (1832), followed by Strauss’s Philomelen-Walzer (1835, Strauss’s Op. 82). Thirdly, the audience heard the previously-mentioned Cavatina of Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable, and the first part concluded with the potpourri Ein Strauß von Strauß (1832, Op. 55). The second part opened with Strauss’s Waltz Die Nachtwandler (then a comparatively new work written in 1836, Op. 88), followed by the aforementioned aria of Boieldieu sung by ‘Mamsell Zöhrer’. Another potpourri or quodlibet followed, Der Musikalische Wortwechsel, a work by Strauss without an opus number written in 1833. Finally, the orchestra played Walzer-Guirlande, a combination of several parts of favourite Strauss Waltzes. Since Strauss published two such garlands before 1836, I am not sure whether Wahrlieb refers to the first (Op. 67 from 1834) or the second one (Op. 77 from 1835). After briefly mentioning that the concert was overcrowded, the review ends with a preview for the following Sunday evening, 9 October, when Strauss and his orchestra would play for a dance event in the hotel Alte Stadt London.
The balls are mentioned, but the journals do not pay as much attention to these as to the concerts. This is understandable, since, at that time, music journalism had already developed as criticism of musical works (opuses) and performances. The question remains as to why the balls were not advertised to the same extent as the concerts were, especially because advertisements of private balls and dancing were quite usual in the newspapers. Apart from that, the Strauss balls seem to be outnumbered here by his concerts. Strauss acted here as a businessman: his works were printed by the famous Vienna publishers Diabelli in 1827 and Haslinger from 1828. He had seen the success of Paganini’s concerts in Vienna in 1828, wrote and published his Walzer (à la Paganini), Op. 11, in the same year and began to take entrance fees.34
On Friday, 7 October 1836, Strauss advertised in the PgN (No. 239) a ‘third and last’ Humoristische und Musikalische Abend-Unterhaltung for the following Saturday evening in the Apollosaal, wrote that he would be taking his leave and thanked Hamburg’s public for the warm reception. There is no document that evidences him giving this concert, but on Saturday he again published a message in the same journal, saying that — according to the requests and wishes of the public — he had arranged with the administration of the Stadttheater to give a concert on Tuesday 11 October. The newspaper also announced this concert, adding that the evening would open with a one-act comedy (Die Verräther), and would include a one-act farce (Drei Frauen auf einmal) as the entr’acte between the two sets of the concert.
On Wednesday 12 October, the newspapers notified readers that the last concert by Strauss would take place on Thursday 13 October, but, on Thursday, it was announced that this concert was actually a penultimate one.
Finally, on Friday and Saturday, a final concert was again announced for Saturday 15 October, and this third of the three concerts by Strauss performed in the Stadttheater was indeed the last time Strauss’s music was played by himself and his orchestra in Hamburg in 1836.
The PgN published a second concert review on Thursday 13 October (No. 244, p. 4) of the first concert in the Stadttheater (given on Tuesday 11 October). It is much shorter than the first review featured in this newspaper, and partly repeats what was mentioned before. Again, it seems that the concert was overcrowded, so some people had to leave and wait for the next one. An excellent performance, especially that given by the brass section, is mentioned. The prejudice that northern German ‘character’ would not be receptive to these humorous, trifling (bloß scherzhaft tändelnd) compositions had to be abandoned, since Strauss — contrary to his original intention — was willing to prolong his stay for some time in the city. The same day (13 October), two short, dignified poems of gratitude, signed by an anonymous M., were published in the NZ (No. 244), one dedicated to ‘Capellmeister Strauß’, the other to the members of the band.
Der Freischütz published in its following weekly issues (15, 22, and 29 October Nos. 42, 43, 44) some pieces of information concerning Strauss. The first was a brief summary of the first eight events that Strauss had previously held in Hamburg. Strauss would be ‘listened to, danced to, and even eaten to’ (people could picnic during the concert in Ottensen in the saloon of Sir Rainville). The tempi of the music played at the ball are described as somewhat quick, and therefore physically demanding for the dancers. The second (22 October) describes the last two concerts in the Stadttheater as well-attended and the performance as excellent, laced with humour, and received with sonorous applause. On the 29 October, two weeks after Strauss’s departure, the journal declared the state of health in Hamburg to be very good: except for the circulation of some fever (Strauß- and Lanner-fever).35
![](image/Fig.10.3.jpg)
Fig. 10.3 Charles Wilda, Der Ball, 1906. Lanner is the violin player on the left, Strauss is the player on the right. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles-Wilda_Joseph-Lanner-und-Johann-Strauss_1906.jpg
Strauss and Other Musicians
On 17 October, an announcement appeared in the PgN (No. 247), written by the owner of the Apollo-Theater, E. F. D. Wilckens. He declared that, in order to satisfy requests from several sides, there will be a weekly music entertainment under the name of Apollo-Soirée, like those in Vienna and imitated in other places. An orchestra of thirty members will play under the direction of the famous Conrad Berens (1801–1857), beginning on Wednesday 19 October. On that Wednesday, one could read in the same newspaper a programme of the musical pieces that Berens and his orchestra would perform: overtures of Die diebische Elster (La gazza ladra) by Rossini (1792–1868); Jelva (Yelva) by Carl Gottlieb Reissiger (1798–1859); Iris- and Huldigung-Walzer by Strauss; and Lock-Walzer and Die Neapolitaner, the newest Waltzes by Joseph Lanner (1801–1843). Such events can certainly be regarded as a prompt reaction to Strauss’s appearance in Hamburg, although, in an older issue of the PgN (No. 196, p. 4), dated 18 August 1836, we find a short review of the first Musikalische Abend-Unterhaltung in the open air of the Tivoli garden with ‘the most pleasing melodies of Strauss, Lanner, Labitzky’, alternating with military music. A composition by Berens himself is singled out, a Galop from Die Hugenotten (the Huguenots), Meyerbeer’s latest opera, which premièred in 1836. Such entertainments were held regularly, as long as the weather allowed open air events, and we find announcements for another ‘große, musikalische Abend-Unterhaltung à la Strauss und Lanner’ (‘great musical evening entertainment à la Strauss and Lanner’) at the Elbpavillon (PgN, No. 225, 21 September), a sixth ‘große, musikalische Abend-Unterhaltung à la Strauss und Lanner’ in the garden of G. L. Salje (PgN, No. 231, 28 September), and the last one for this season in the same place on Saturday 8 October. Another musical director, August Martin Canthal (1804–1881), played with a large orchestra several times a week in the Privat-Verein an der Alster, performing works by Lanner (22 September), by Reissiger and Canthal (24 September), Lanner and Weber (26 September), Auber and Lanner (6 October), or even the same works Strauss had in his current concert repertoire of that time, like Ein Strauss von Strauss, großes Potpourri (8 October).
Lanner and Strauss were also explicitly mentioned in the announcements of the music shops that were lending or selling musical scores. August Cranz’s Musikalienhandel announced the newest Waltz by Lanner, Die Neapolitaner (Op. 107), on 20 September, published originally by Pietro Mecchetti in Vienna less than a month before. Also, on 7 October, B. S. Berendsohn announced Strauss dances ‘in all arrangements’ (PgN, No. 239, p. 8). Schuberth and Niemeyer again announced ‘Strauß’s complete Waltzes and Galops, for pianoforte, two-handed, four handed, for one flute, one guitar, one violin, and for orchestra, Lanner likewise, at fixed prices; further: all overtures, potpourris, Waltzes and galops, namely the compositions of Strauß, Lanner and Canthal, are in great number and in all arrangements on offer at our house’ (PgN, No. 234, p. 8, 1 October).
Joh. Aug. Böhme likewise announced the sale of the newest dances by Joh. Strauß (NZ, No. 235, 3 October); he mentions fifty-five numbers, and lists in detail the last fifteen of these, ending with No. 55 Die Nachtwandler (Strauss’s Op. 88, first announced by Tobias Haslinger in Vienna, 13 September, in the Wiener Zeitung).
In summary: the works of Strauss (and Lanner) were available in several arrangements in at least four different places, and shortly after they were first announced by the publishers in Vienna.
Strauss and Lanner were, by far, the two names most often mentioned in the context of published (dance) music in the 1830s. Later somewhat overshadowed by the Strauss sons, especially by Johann Strauss the Younger (1825–1899), they (Strauss the Elder and Lanner), in their time, themselves overshadowed other dance musicians, many of whom today are either completely unknown to us, or are known to us only by name, and not by their music. A source-critical catalogue of works of Lanner did not appear before 2012. There, the editor, Wolfgang Dörner, wrote very concisely about Lanner’s forerunners, contemporaries and successors, ‘most [of whose] compositions are lost and only from a very few compositions are more than just the titles delivered to posterity’.36 According to Dörner, only one of these composers could maintain an appreciation comparable to Lanner and Strauss: Franz Morelly (1809–1859), who — interestingly, in respect to the spread of dance music — lived in Bombay, India for most of the 1840s and 1850s. Outside Vienna, one should mention: in Karlovy Vary (known in German as Karlsbad), the ‘Bohemian Waltz-King’ Joseph Labitzky (1802–1881, Czech: Josef Labický); in Paris, Philippe Musard (1792–1859), ‘le Napoléon du quadrille’; and, in Copenhagen, the ‘Strauss of the North’, Hans Christian Lumbye (1810–1874). The naming of ‘Kings’ shows that only a few composers dominated the field, in contrast to concepts about ‘folk music’ or ‘folk dance‘.
Publishing Waltzes with opus numbers led to their presentation as musical works for performance in concerts. On the one hand, this resulted in them being viewed as distinct from other types of dance music and musicians. On the other hand, there was an increasing tendency to discuss Strauss’s music as merely ‘entertaining’ (unterhaltend) rather than ‘serious’ (ernst) music. This gave rise to the enduring German differentiation between so-called ‘U-’ (Unterhaltende) and ‘E-Musik’ (Ernste Musik), similar to the English categories of ‘light music’ or ‘popular music’ versus ‘art music’ or ‘classical music’.
Excursus: Serious vs. Entertaining Music
Around 1800, Romantic thinkers began to formulate quasi-religious claims about musical composition. As a result, music history portrayed the development of ‘Classical’ music in Vienna from Haydn to Mozart and, finally, Ludwig van Beethoven. These three are already mentioned as the masters of instrumental music in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s (1776–1822) review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, published in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1810, where Beethoven is described as a deeply Romantic composer. In his time, the significance of Beethoven was not undisputable, but already in the 1820s, Beethoven, not least according to the reception of Adolf Bernhard Marx (1795–1866), founder and editor of the Berliner Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, became an unquestionable genius of the musical avant garde.37 The philosopher and music theorist Johann Amadeus Wendt (1783–1836)38 adopted the conceptualisation of a Classical period in music in his work Ueber den gegenwärtigen Zustand der Musik besonders in Deutschland und wie er geworden of 1836.39 He wrote there about the trio (‘Kleeblatt’) of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven,40 and summarises ‘that exactly with Beethoven a great era is brought about, an era in which secular music climbed to the peak of its energy and significance’.41 As secondary masters of symphonic instrumental music, Wendt mentions Andreas and Bernhard Romberg (both worked for some time in Hamburg), Louis Spohr, Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda, George Onslow, and Peter Josef von Lindpaintner.42 After describing music for solo instruments, Wendt closes his overview of instrumental music with a remark about military music (which, as a specific genre, would cease to exist in his time), and about ‘dance compositions’. He writes: ‘Of dance compositions, however, one does not know that they would ever have gained such widespread fame as those bearing the names of Strauß or Lanner’.43 Strauss and Lanner, again, are singled out here in the same sentence as the only names connected with dance music, and merely with dance music. The writing of music history is already framed around a very few composers, and above all is enthroned the ‘monumental genius’ of Beethoven: ‘With original freedom his monumental genius burst the barriers, which the symmetrical treatment of compositions had for him’.44
This understanding paralleled the advent of fictional Beethoven literature, beginning with stories by Johann Peter Lyser (1804–1870), Ernst Ortlepp (1800–1864) and Richard Wagner (1813–1883).45 In 1834, as Egon Voss observed, Lyser began writing fictional books about Beethoven, initiating this trend.46 The story Lyser tells concerns Beethoven’s youth, and culminates in a visit to Mozart in Vienna, thereby suggesting a concept of music history in which Beethoven is the successor to Mozart.47 Ortlepp, whose screed on Beethoven was published in 1836, presented highly Romantic ideas of Beethoven, as a lonely outsider who condemned money, who worked superhumanly for his art, and, while he was misunderstood in his own time, was destined to be appreciated in the future.48 In Wagner’s A Pilgrimage to Beethoven (written in 1840, and published in 1841), a poor artist plans to visit Beethoven in Vienna. To earn money for the voyage, he tries to make a name for himself by composing Galops and Potpourris, which he feels ashamed about. Creating serious music is a clearly formulated ideal, one that seems more appropriate to the Northern regions of Germany than to the Viennese surroundings of Beethoven. Wagner depicts Beethoven saying: ‘I often lose patience with the people of Vienna. They listen daily to too much poor stuff to be in the mood — for any considerable length of time — to take up serious work in a serious manner’.49 Beethoven, according to Wagner’s fiction, imagines having a better life composing Galops, for if he continues in this way, he will always live in want.50 Non-fictional biographical reminiscences of Beethoven were also published at that time — Ferdinand Ries’s and Gerhard Wegeler’s Biographische Notizen über Ludwig van Beethoven appeared in 1838, Anton Schindler’s Biographie von Ludwig von Beethoven in 184051 — as well as portrayals of Beethoven’s works, such as that of Hermann Hirschbach (1812–1888) focusing on the late string quartets, published in 1839, in which even Haydn and Mozart’s music is described as listenable and entertaining ‘without difficult contemplation’. Hirschbach writes in favour of intellectual work and against ‘the hedonism of most music enthusiasts’.52
Such a digression about the reception of Beethoven’s work might not seem essential in a chapter on Waltz music. It is important to recognise though that in the writing of music history, entertainment-orientated music was depreciated such that dance music (not to mention dance itself) has been left out of the discourse. Moreover, the authors of the works quoted here were close contemporaries of Strauss, and were writing in a post-Beethoven period. Other voices, like that of Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), were seldom heard. Heine wrote: ‘Beethoven urges the spiritual art to sound the agony of the phenomenal world, the annihilation of nature, which terrifies me in a way I cannot hide, although my friends shake their heads about it’.53 Such views were widely overlooked until recent times, for example, in Jan Caeyers’s biography of Beethoven.54
With regard to Strauss’s success in Pest (Budapest) in November 1833, the correspondent of the Theaterzeitung (Vienna) described Strauss as ‘the Mozart of the Waltzes, the Beethoven of the Cotillions, the Paganini of the Galops, the Rossini of the potpourris’.55 In an indirect response, an article by Johann W. Hofzinser in the journal Der Sammler in December stated that Strauss’s compositions should be called fabrications rather than works.56 According to Norbert Linke, this, together with other articles, was ‘the first publicly held discussion regarding entertainment music’.57
Dance and Dance Music
There were different preferences within the Waltz genre too, with regard to both the dance music and the dance itself. Schönherr and Reinöhl quote Moritz Gottlieb Saphir, who distinguished between public balls, masquerade balls (redoutes), society balls, house balls, picnics and Schnackerlballs.58 The orchestras of that time, and the venues in which they played, were also different. Lanner or Strauss, Morelly or Faistenberger, Hablawetz or Wanzenböck: the latter (Hablawetz and Wanzenböck) played in smaller locations, but there was no overcrowding and therefore more space to dance.59
Announcements with respect to dance in Hamburg in 1836 are mainly to be found in two newspapers: the PgN (Hamburg) and the Altonaer-Nachrichten (Altona). These announcements refer to balls and to dancing classes. However, there is no information about which dances were performed at the balls, or which dance forms were taught in the classes. Altona, as well as Hamburg, was part of the German Confederation (1815–1866). Hamburg was a Free (and Hanseatic) City; meanwhile, Altona was under the rule of the Danish king. The distance between the city boundaries of Hamburg (Millerntor) and Altona (Nobistor) was only about 1.5 kilometres.60
A comparison of the size of the two cities (see Fig. 10.4) may mislead the observer. Hamburg was a much bigger and more populous city, with a population of around 134,000 inhabitants in 1836, in contrast to the 27,000 of Altona.
![](image/Fig.10.4.jpg)
Fig. 10.4 Wilhelm E. A. von Schlieben, Map of Hamburg (in the East) and Altona/Ottensen (in the West) in 1833, https://www.christian-terstegge.de/hamburg/karten_umgebung/files/1833_neue_geographie_300dpi.jpeg. Image courtesy of Christian Terstegge, Public Domain.
Several balls were announced in Altona. At the end of September and at the beginning of October, there were several vintage and harvest festivals, including balls. Regular subscriber’s balls (Abonnentenbälle) also announced opening balls for the winter season. At the same time, advertisements appeared for dance classes by the dance teachers G. Hennig, J. Katzenstein, August von Wobeser-Rosenhain, and a certain J. Sch.
It is not clear exactly what kind of dancing was taught. J. Sch. announced common dance teaching (Altonaer Nachrichten, No. 78, 28 September 1836), G. Hennig ‘dance art for adults’ (Altonaer Nachrichten, No. 75, 17 September 1836, p. 333), J. Katzenstein taught according to ‘the newest rules of the ballet master Tescher [1812–1883] from Vienna’ (Altonaer Nachrichten, No. 75, 17 September 1836, p. 333), and A. von Wobeser-Rosenhain came over from Kiel as a Royal (Danish) Academic dance teacher to announce his classes for adults and children (see Altonaer Nachrichten, No. 81, 8 October 1836). He also publicised his arrival in Altona in the PgN (No. 231) of Hamburg on 28 September, and announced the beginning of the classes on 1 October. Other dance teachers also announced themselves in the PgN, especially in the issue of 28 September: J. H. C. Lindhorst, H. W. Voss, and A. C. Töpfer (a ballet dancer). Some balls are also announced there, but to a slightly lesser extent than in Altona. Additionally, however, there are several announcements of dance music, some of them illuminated by special gas lighting or ‘brilliant Venetian theatre illumination’ (PgN, No. 225, p. 9, 21 September 1836).61 A special ball with Harmoniemusik, i.e. music played by a brass band, was announced for 20 October. Here, again, Strauss’s Vienna was the model, as the advertisement says explicitly: ‘humoristic-musical Evening-Entertainment à la Strauß and Lanner’ (PgN, No. 250, p. 8).
Circumstances
Living composers of so-called ‘serious’ musical works are not often mentioned in the Hamburg newspapers of early autumn 1836, insofar as their work is not listed in the programme of concerts and operas played at that time in Hamburg, or in the announcements of music shops selling musical scores. We find some brief news items in the Correspondent: about the concerts of Franz Lachner (1803–1880) in Munich, who was capellmeister there from 1 July (Correspondent, No. 234, 3 October); about Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847), who had returned from his journey to Leipzig, now married to the daughter of a reformist preacher in Frankfurt (Correspondent, No. 238, 7 October); or about the first opera by a female composer in France, Le mauvais oeil of Loïsa Puget (1810–1889) (Correspondent, No. 244, 14 October).
The political affairs of September and October 1836, in Germany and elsewhere, were widely reported. Most of the space was taken up by the revolutionary chain of events in Spain and Portugal, which were communicated via Paris (this appeared in the Hamburg newspapers up to three weeks later than the actual events). Later in October, the German veterans of the Napoleonic Wars from 1813 were still remembered in news outlets.
The most remarkable technical innovations of the time were already under way: gas lighting and the transport revolution, comprising steamships on rivers and oceans, and the invention of the railway.62 Superficially speaking, railway and steamships do not seem to have much to do with music and dance. They are intimately linked to them, however, when it comes to the dissemination of products and the interchange of goods and ideas, modes and fashions. Strauss did not only use new industries to spread his music, but also included them as part of his very compositions (as, for example, in the Railway Pleasure Waltzes). In this context, Hansjörgel’s comment about naming Waltzes is understandable: ‘I think about: Heaver and Hoaver, Swinger, Fire in Every Corner, Electrifying Waltzes, Feet Steam Engine, or something similar’.63 The dynamics of the Waltz are comparable to the dynamics of technically advanced locomotion movements, with both developing in parallel. What was later called the Biedermeier period was also a time of rapid technological change, from the late 1820s, which occurred alongside the evolution and dissemination of Strauss’s Waltzes.
Gas lighting on the streets was first tested in London in 1807–1808 and came into general use from 1814. Vienna followed in 1818. Other German cities that adopted gas lighting at this time were Hanover (1825) and Berlin (1826), while Hamburg instituted gas lighting as street light in 1845. Aiming to provide European cities with gas lighting, the London-based Imperial Continental Gas Association (ICGA) was founded in 1824. The NZ (No. 246) of 15 October published the arrival of (George William) Drory (1803–1879), co-director of the ICGA, in Aachen for negotiating the gas lighting for the city.64 The newspaper also reported that Mr Drory had previously established gas lighting in Amsterdam, Ghent, Lille, and Harlem. Illumination also played a growing role in the locations chosen for concerts and balls, as these were often evening or night events.
![](image/Fig.10.5.jpg)
Fig. 10.5 Jacob Petersen, The Steamship Frederik den Siette, 1838. Landesmuseum, Schleswig, Germany. Frederik den Siette was the first steamship built in Denmark. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain, https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Petersen_(maler)#/media/Fil:Ship_Frederik_den_Siette_by_Jacob_Petersen.jpg
With respect to new developments in transport, a regular steamboat crossing the river Elbe between Hamburg and Harburg began in 1829, although intercontinental overseas travel by steamboat had not yet begun.65 Shorter distances between Kiel and Copenhagen were already done by the steamship Caledonia in 1819, and in 1836 the NZ (15 October) announced the steamship Frederik den Siette was to leave Kiel for Copenhagen on (all) Saturdays. A longer article from the day before (NZ, No. 245, 14 October) discussed the advent of ‘steamboating on the ocean’ (p. 2): ‘The steamships will change the contacts of the people with whom they move [or socialise]’.
The railways were also on the horizon. The first railway connection, built between Liverpool and Manchester, opened in 1830. Five years later, the first German railway connected Nuremberg with Fürth. In Austria, the railway between Vienna and Deutsch-Wagram opened in 1837. In July 1836, Strauss’s first ‘Railway Festival’ (Eisenbahnfest) took place, for which he composed the Railway Pleasure Waltzes (Eisenbahn-Lust-Walzer), Op. 89.
A long article Ueber Eisenbahnen und das Interesse Hamburgs from Friedrich List’s (1789–1846) Railway-Journal (Eisenbahn-Journal) of 1835 was republished in three parts in the NZ (No. 230) of 27 (No. 232) and 29 September, and 5 October 1836 (No. 237). Since the early 1830s, there were plans for a railway connection from Hamburg to Lübeck at the Baltic Sea, but it would have had to cross parts of Denmark, and the Danish did not accept these plans, so the line was not built before the 1860s. The first Hamburg railway was connected with Bergedorf (on Hamburg ground, between 1844 and 1846 extended to Berlin), planned by William Lindley (1808–1900) in 1838 and opened in May 1842, during the great fire of Hamburg (5–8 May), when it transported firemen rather than guests, and evacuated those who had lost their homes. The Danish, for their part, built a railway between Kiel and Altona, which opened in 1844. This demonstrates the political dimensions of national and international connections: Altona (as well as Hamburg) was part of the German Confederation with its many member states and a territory that extended south to Trieste and Ljubljana (Laibach). At the same time, it was also part of the Danish helstaten (1773–1864),66 which included Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Isles, some oversea colonies, and (until 1814) Norway.67 As for Hamburg, it had the power to negotiate shipping and trade treaties that connected German economies with overseas countries.68 Finally, south of the Elbe, a railway connection from Harburg to Hanover was planned in the 1830s, which opened between Hanover and Celle in 1845, and between Celle and Harburg in 1847.69
Eduard Beurmann wrote that the people of the city states of Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg were not overly concerned about the rest of Germany, which they viewed mostly as a market for their goods. Nonetheless, they maintained Germany’s trade with the transatlantic world.70 He added that Hamburg, in particular, would become a global city with daily connections to the East, West, North and South.71 However, Beurmann considered the patriotism in Hamburg (and generally in Germany) as provincial and apolitical (in the sense of national pretensions). Hamburg would end at its city gates, and — in reference to the circumstances throughout Germany — he (over)stated that it would be easier to get from Germany to America than from Hamburg to Altona.72
Conclusions
The distribution via new means of reproduction of the musical scores of Johann Strauss the Elder and Joseph Lanner made dance music popular on a supra-regional level. Strauss, in particular, achieved international fame through touring with his orchestra far from Vienna. His music became known in other European regions soon after being published. Although this fact does not sufficiently explain how the dance was spread, the dissemination of well-known dance music certainly influenced the distribution of Waltz as a dance.73 However, Strauss and some of his colleagues not only played at the balls, but also began to perform music not composed especially for dance. For example, the overtures of contemporary and popular operas were part of the concerts of the so called ‘Waltz kings’, and Strauss also included the themes of such operas as a reference to his own compositions. Be that as it may, philosophically-oriented writing on music discarded the compositions of the ‘Waltz kings’ as merely entertaining. Subsequently, dance music (and dance in general) never became a serious part of academic discourse on music history and historiography. However, Strauss was very up to date with developments of his time, so much so that, especially from 1830 onwards, his music had begun to change rapidly with the proliferation of technical innovations.74
Strauss’s stay in Hamburg in the autumn of 1836 gives an insight into how new forms of supra-regional touring with an orchestra of about thirty musicians was organised partly on the spot when changing dates or prolonging the stay. The newspapers also provide some information about the circumstances of that time, about international affairs, technical innovations, and organisation of balls and cultural events. Studying dance and dance music in other cities, in addition to their supposed places of ‘origin’, shows that, already in the 1830s, the distribution of music and dance genres was beginning to have an international appearance, first in Europe, and, subsequently, worldwide.
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Fig. 10.6 Audio: Eisenbahnlustwalzer, Op. 89 by Johann Strauss the Elder, performed by the Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra. ‘Eisenbahn-Lust-Walzer, Op. 89’, 7:35, posted online by Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra — Topic, Youtube, 16 August 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_k2kuhG0BM |
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1 Derek B. Scott, Sounds of the Metropolis: The 19th Century Popular Music Revolution in London, New York, Paris and Vienna (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 122.
2 Ibid., p. 138.
3 See Jörgen Torp, Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte urbaner Popularmusik unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Tango rioplatense (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Hamburg, 1989), and Alte atlantische Tangos: Rhythmische Figurationen im Wandel der Zeiten und Kulturen (Hamburg: LIT Verlag, 2007).
4 See Reingard Witzmann, Der Ländler in Wien. Ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Wiener Walzers bis in die Zeit des Wiener Kongresses (Vienna: Arbeitsstelle für den Volkskundeatlas in Österreich, 1976).
5 With regard to Hamburg and Altona, we find, as early as 1806, the little waltzes by the young Friedrich Kuhlau (1786–1832): ‘Hamburgischer Favorit-Walzer’ and ‘Altonaischer Favorit-Walzer’ (see Jørgen Erichsen, Friedrich Kuhlau, Ein deutscher Musiker in Kopenhagen: Eine Biographie nach zeitgenössischen Dokumenten (Hildesheim: Olms, 2011), pp. 50ff).
6 According to the division of media into four groups proposed by Werner Faulstich, written and print media are ‘secondary media’ (1. primary media: media of man (theatre), 2. secondary media: written and print media, 3. tertiary media: electronic media, 4. quaternary media: digital media), see Werner Faulstich, ‘Einführung’, in Grundwissen Medien, ed. by Werner Faulstich, 5th edn (Munich: Fink, 2004), p. 9. However, Faulstich describes as secondary media only various forms of literary media, and does not include music (or dance). The importance of print media for the spread of music is well described in Peter Wicke’s cultural history of popular music (Peter Wicke, Von Mozart zu Madonna: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Popmusik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2001)). Here, Wicke particularly draws attention to the invention of lithography by Alois Senefelder (1771–1834) leading to the first lithographic reproduction of a notated musical piece in 1796.
7 See, for example, Norbert Linke, Musik erobert die Welt oder Wie die Wiener Familie Strauß die Wiener Familie Strauß die ‘Unterhaltungsmusik’ revolutionierte (Vienna: Herold, 1987).
8 See also the comments in Max Schönherr and Karl Reinöhl, Johann Strauss Vater: Ein Werkverzeichnis (London: Universal Edition, 1954), pp. 99–101.
9 See Linke, Musik erobert die Welt, pp. 109–12, and also the comments to Strauss’s Op. 78 (the Waltz Erinnerung an Berlin) and Op. 79 (the Waltz Gedanken-Striche) in Schönherr and Reinhöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, pp. 117–22.
10 See Schönherr and Reinhöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, p. 132. Schönherr and Reinöhl write about this journey in their comment on Strauss’s Waltz Op. 84, Heimath-Klänge, but also the Reise-Galopp, Op. 85, and the Waltz Erinnerung an Deutschland, Op. 87, may be of interest in this respect.
11 See Schönherr and Reinhöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, pp. 140–42 and their additional remarks to the Krönungswalzer Op. 91, and in Linke, Music erobert die Welt, pp. 121–29 (chapter 15, ‘Das erste Reise-Orchester der Welt’).
12 This voyage is described in Linke, Musik erobert die Welt, pp. 130–36.
13 From January 1838 to January 1839, Strauss presented his Opp. 100–05, beginning with the Galop Der Carneval von Paris (Op. 100), the Waltz Paris (Op. 101), the Original-Parade-Marsch (Op. 102), the Waltz Huldigung der Königin Victoria von Großbritannien (Op. 103), the Boulogner-Galopp nach Motiven aus der Oper Die Botschafterin von D. Auber (Op. 104) and the Waltz Freuden-Grüße (Motto: ‘Überall gut — in der Heimath am besten’), his Op. 105.
14 Schönherr and Reinhöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, p. 169.
15 Ibid., pp. 170–72.
16 All direct quotations from the journals are translated from the German by Jörgen Torp.
17 The Hamburgischer Correspondent was successor to the Holsteinischer Correspondent (founded 1712), when the latter moved from Schiffbek to Hamburg in 1731; see Ernst Baasch, Geschichte des Hamburgischen Zeitungswesens von den Anfängen bis 1914 (Hamburg: Friederichsen, de Gruyter & Co., 1930), pp. 3ff. In 1836, it appeared from Monday to Saturday and — like the NZ and the PgN — consisted of eight pages with three columns per page.
18 This newspaper was the result of the 1826 fusion of the Neue Zeitung and the Hamburgische Adreß-Comtoir-Nachrichten, both founded in 1767 (Baasch, Geschichte des Hamburgischen Zeitungswesens, pp. 8–11 and p. 49).
19 The PgN appeared first in 1792 (see Baasch, Geschichte des Hamburgischen Zeitungswesens, p. 11).
20 A small newspaper from Hamburg’s neighbour city Altona. In 1836, it appeared twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays with four pages each.
21 Der Freischütz appeared weekly on Saturdays from 1825 (Baasch, Geschichte des Hamburgischen Zeitungswesens, p. 53). It had eight pages in 1836 and 1847 with two columns per page in 1836 and three columns in 1847.
22 The Börsenhalle appeared since 1805 (Baasch, Geschichte des Hamburgischen Zeitungswesens, p. 14). In 1847, it was a daily newspaper (Monday to Saturday) of four pages.
23 I will not describe here the full content and composition of these journals and newspapers, their political or their entertainment ambitions, and their ups and downs. During the time of the French (Napoleonic) occupation, most newspapers disappeared in 1811, and reappeared in 1813 and 1814. In many regards, the cultural importance of Hamburg reached its peak in the second half of the eighteenth century. The French occupation was a hard blow, from which Hamburg recovered only very slowly.
24 Schönherr and Reinhöhl, Johann Strauss Vater.
25 Schönherr and Reinhöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, p. 129.
26 Published in PgN, No. 237, 5 October, and in Der Freischütz, No. 41, 8 October.
27 PgN, No. 244, 13 October.
28 I was unable to find any information in the Hamburg newspapers about the voyage of Strauss predating 26 September.
29 Newspaper articles from other places took time to reach Hamburg, and therefore are marked as ‘delayed’ according to the distance and the circumstances of communication.
30 Correspondent, No. 234, p. 6.
31 ‘die Herren G. Jegg, F. Amon, J. Famberger, A. Hohnstatt, J. Babel, E. Pauli, E. Fuchs, G. Fistl, J. Fichter, J. Loschdorfer, L. Thauer, J. Thyam, J. Drabsch, F. Styaßny, J. Benesch, J. Woitischek, C. Schalta, L. Hofinger, F. Bödl, J. Erber, J. Janofsky, J. Fink, M. Stark, J. Moser, L. Hanglmann, F. Zöhrer, J. Liebe und Demois. Elise Zöhrer’.
32 NZ, No. 236, p. 4.
33 I could not discover the identity of the person behind the pseudonym ‘Wahrlieb’. Eduard Beurmann (1804–1883) in his book Skizzen aus den Hanse-Städten (on Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg), published in 1836, wrote that ‘Kapellmeister Wahrlieb’ regrettably had died, and that his successor was a writer of much lesser quality (see Eduard Beurmann, Skizzen aus den Hanse-Städten (Hanau: Friedrich König, 1836), pp. 181 ff., https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10018583_00005.html). Indeed, the following issues of the Freischütz do not include information signed by Wahrlieb about further Strauss’s concerts. It may be that ‘Wahrlieb’ had died shortly after having written his article on Strauss’s first concert in Hamburg.
34 See Schönherr and Reinhöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, pp. 29–32.
35 Mentioning the state of public health was not unusual in nineteenth-century Europe, especially in times of cholera epidemics. The cholera epidemic of 1831, spreading from India via Russia, extracted a heavy cost, with many deaths in Europe. In 1836, the newspapers reported on cholera in Prague, the first stop of Strauss’s tour. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, in 1892, Hamburg suffered an epidemic in which thousands of people died; see the comprehensive study by Richard J. Evans, Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera-Years 1830–1910 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987).
36 Wolfgang Dörner, Joseph Lanner — Chronologisch-thematisches Werkverzeichnis (Vienna: Böhlau 2012), p. 26. Translated from the German by Jörgen Torp
37 See Elisabeth Eleonore Bauer, Wie Beethoven auf den Sockel kam. Die Entstehung eines musikalischen Mythos (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1992).
38 Wendt died on the 15 October in Göttingen, on the day Strauss gave his last concert in Hamburg in 1836.
39 (Johann) Amadeus Wendt, Ueber den gegenwärtigen Zustand der Musik besonders in Deutschland und wie er geworden. Eine beurtheilende Schilderung (Göttingen. Dieterichsche Buchhandlung 1836).
40 Ibid., p. 3.
41 Ibid., p. 1.
42 Ibid., pp. 8–10.
43 Ibid., p. 21.
44 Ibid., p. 6.
45 See Egon Voss, ‘Das Beethoven-Bild der Beethoven-Belletristik. Zu einigen Erzählungen des 19. Jahrhunderts’, in Beethoven und die Nachwelt. Materialien zur Wirkungsgeschichte Beethovens, ed. by Helmut Loos (Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 1986), pp. 81–94.
46 Ibid.
47 Johann Peter Lyser, ‘Beethoven’, in Beethoven. Zwei Novellen von Johann Peter Lyser und Ernst Ortlepp, ed. by Paul Bülow (Lübeck: Antäus 1924), pp. 8–41 (originally published in NZ, 17 July-7 August 1834).
48 Ernst Ortlepp, ‘Beethoven’, in Beethoven. Zwei Novellen von Johann Peter Lyser und Ernst Ortlepp, ed. by Paul Bülow (Lübeck: Antäus, 1924), pp. 43–72.
49 Richard Wagner, ‘Eine Pilgerfahrt zu Beethoven ‘, in Richard Wagner. Ausgewählte Schriften und Briefe, ed. by Philipp Werner (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2013), pp. 27–53 (originally published in Abend-Zeitung, 30 July-5 August 1841), 1900 edition available at https://archive.org/details/einepilgerfahrtz00wagn. ‘Deutsche Ernsthaftigkeit’ (German seriousness) as opposed to French ‘légèreté’ (‘französische Leichtigkeit’) in poetry was already a topos representing the national character in the eighteenth century, see Jörg Echternkamp, Der Aufstieg des deutschen Nationalismus (1770–1840) (New York: Campus, 1998), p. 122.
50 Wagner, ‘Eine Pilgerfahrt zu Beethoven’, p. 51.
51 However, Schindler’s biography of Beethoven has proved to be partly fictional.
52 Hermann Hirschbach, ‘Ueber Beethoven’s letzte Streichquartette’, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, 11 (1839), 5–6.
53 Heinrich Heine, ‘XXXIII’ (Paris, 20th of April 1841), in ‘Lutetia — Erster Teil’, http://www.heinrich-heine-denkmal.de/heine-texte/lutetia33.shtml.
54 Jan Caeyers, Beethoven. Der einsame Revolutionär. Eine Biographie (Munich: Beck, 2012), originally published as Beethoven. Een Biografie (Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 2009). Caeyers quotes from Heine’s article, but from a shortened version of it, in which a critique of Beethoven’s biographer Anton Schindler is given, but not of Heine’s remarks about Beethoven. In regard to Johann Strauss the Elder and his music, Caeyers musters only belittling words: such music pleases the senses, but does not make demands of the mind (p. 16), is meant for superficial consumption (p. 593), is fabricated, easily comprehensible, rhythmical according to the dizziness of dance (p. 598), and suitable only for hedonistic ignoramuses (p. 599). Caeyers’ solid biography of Beethoven here remains partial just at the point at which he opens his perspective towards politics and quality of life.
55 Quoted from Linke, Musik erobert die Welt oder Wie die Wiener Familie Strauß die Wiener Familie Strauß die ‘Unterhaltungsmusik’ revolutionierte, p. 104
56 See Schönherr and Reinhöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, pp. 99–101.
57 Linke, Musik erobert die Welt, p. 104. The term Unterhaltung [entertainment], however, was also in use for ‘classical’ music during the whole period: Musikalische Abendunterhaltungen [evening entertainments] were held under this name in Vienna as part of the Gesellschaft für Musikfreunde [Society of Friends of Music] between 1818 and 1840, in which string quartets, in particular, played an important part; see Ingrid Fuchs, ‘Zur Wiener Kammermusiktradition zwischen Schubert und Brahms’, in Brahms’ Schubert-Rezeption im Wiener Kontext, ed. by Otto Biba, Gernot Gruber, Katharina Loose-Einfalt, and Siegfried Oechsle (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2017), pp. 33–49. The unwillingness to denominate Waltzes as works and Strauss and Lanner as capellmeisters is already noted in a letter by Chopin to his teacher Josef Elsner in January of 1831 — see Chopin’s Briefe (Letters), ed. by Krystyna Kobylanska (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1984), p. 116 — and also Schönherr and Reinöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, p. 71. Lanner, however, was not accepted in 1830 as a member of the Viennese Tonkünstler-Societät (Musician Society), because of being a dance musician, see Frank Miller, Johann Strauss Vater. Der musikalische Magier des Wiener Biedermeier (Eisenburg: Castell, 1999), p. 98.
58 See Schönherr and Reinöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, p. 22. Unfortunately, neither Schönherr and Reinöhl (nor Linke) in the book(s) quoted here give the bibliographical references. They are probably discussing Moritz Gottlieb Saphir’s (1795–1858) journalistic work. This work is so copious that it is very difficult to find the passage to which Schönherr and Reinöhl refer. In regard to Saphir, they refer to the Wiener Theaterzeitung, a journal founded by Adolf Bäuerle (1786–1859), for which Saphir wrote at times.
59 Schönherr and Reinöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, p. 23.
60 South of the river Elbe, the city of Harburg (today also part of Hamburg) fell under a different political authority, the king of Hanover. Hamburg and Altona were unified in 1937.
61 Such a ‘Venetian illumination’ is also connected with the name of Johann Strauss. A brightly illuminated Venetian Night in the open-air Augarten took place on 29 July 1833, see Schönherr and Reinöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, pp. 96ff., repeated the following year on 21 July 1834, ibid., pp. 111ff.
62 Further developing technical innovations of the later 1830s were electric telegraphy and the daguerreotype.
63 Komische Briefe des Hansjörgels von Gumpoldskirchen, a monthly Austrian journal, appearing from 1832–1851. Quoted according to Schönherr and Reinöhl, Johann Strauss Vater, p. 93: ‘I denket mir für so was: Heber und Schweber, Antaucher, Feuer in allen Ecken, Electrisir-Walzer, Fußdampfmaschin’ oder so was’.
64 Gas lighting illuminated the streets of Aachen from September of 1838.
65 The US sailing ship ‘Savannah’ had an additional paddle steam engine, when it crossed the Atlantic in 1819 (without cargo and passengers), but most of the journey was powered by sail.
66 Some maintain that the period of helstaten began in 1814 with the treaty of Kiel, others allude to the treaty of Zarskoje Selo (near St. Petersburg in Russia), 1773. On the treaty of Kiel see Der Kieler Frieden 1814. Ein Schicksalsjahr für den Norden, ed. by Sonja Kinzler (Neumünster/Hamburg: Wachholtz, 2014).
67 Thomas Hill remarks that the nineteenth-century period of helstaten was viewed negatively by Danish national romantics. However, this would not have been the case in the eighteenth century, when patriotism was very different from the nineteenth-century nationalism it became. A professor in Kiel, Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch (1740–1812), for example, wrote in 1784: ‘Love your fatherland to bits; and what is your fatherland? All countries of the King; Denmark, Norway, Holstein and Iceland, not a single one excluded’ (Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch, Über die gegenseitigen Pflichten verschiedener unter Einem Oberhaupte vereinigter Nationen, 2nd edn (Eckardt: Altona, 1784), p. 5). Hegewisch quoted this sentence from a work by the Danish-Norwegian historian Peter Frederik Suhm (1728–1798); see Peter Frederik Suhm, Danmarks, Norges og Holstens Historie i Udtog, til den studerende Ungdoms Tjeneste (Copenhagen: L. Simmelkjaer, 1776), https://archive.org/details/historienafdanm00suhmgoog/page/n9/mode/2up. See also Silke Göttsch, ‘Grenzziehungen — Grenzerfahrungen. Das Beispiel Schleswig-Holstein und Dänemark 1800–1860’, in Grenzen and Differenzen. Zur Macht sozialer und kultureller Grenzziehungen, ed. by Thomas Hengartner and Johannes Moser (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2006) pp. 383–94, who argues, along with Suhm, that national differentiation was still not problematised. Hegewisch, for his part, considered that the period characterised by nationalism (Nationalhass: national hate) lay in the past, and his time would be happier for everybody (Hegewisch, Über die gegenseitigen Pflichten, p. 9). More unusual, particularly in the German context, is the comprehensive study of Jörg Echternkamp, who describes differences as well as continuities between eighteenth-century patriotism and nineteenth-century nationalism in three parts (1770–1800, 1800–1820, 1820–1840): Echternkamp, Der Aufstieg des deutschen Nationalismus.
68 The shipping and trade treaty between the Free and Hanseatic cities of Lübeck, Hamburg, and Bremen with Brazil, ratified in 1828, was a milestone in this regard; see Handels- und Schiffahrtsvertrag zwischen den Senaten der freien und Hansestädte Lübeck, Bremen und Hamburg, und Sr. Majestät dem Kaiser von Brasilien, unterzeichnet zu Rio de Janeiro am 17. November 1827. Eine Dokumentation von Herbert Minnemann, ed. by Albrecht von Gleich (Hamburg: Institut für Iberoamerika-Kunde, 1977).
69 Until 1837, Great Britain and the kingdom of Hanover were ruled in personal union. Article 1 of the German Federal Act of 1815 begins as follows: ‘The King of Great Britain and Ireland as the King of Hanover, the King of Denmark as the Duke of Holstein and Lauenburg, and the King of the Netherlands as the Grand Duke of Luxembourg are associated with the German Confederation. They are Princes of the Confederation as all the others too’.
70 Beurmann, Skizzen aus den Hanse-Städten, p. 8.
71 Ibid., pp. 157ff. Another book of interest regarding Hamburg and Altona, and also published in 1836, is a five-hundred-page handbook: Ant. Joh. Heinr. Meyer, Hamburg und Altona nebst Umgegend. Topographisch-statistisch-historisches Handbuch für Einheimische und Fremde (Hamburg and Itzehoe: Schuberth & Niemeyer, 1836). As an appendix, Meyer gives ‘special notices for foreigners’ with all locations of consular offices. These include representations of thirty other states from inside as well as from outside the German Confederation.
72 Eduard Beurmann, Deutschland und die Deutschen, vol. 1 (Altona: Johann Friedrich Hammerich, 1838), p. 215: ‘Fürwahr man kann leichter von Deutschland nach Amerika gelangen, als von Hamburg nach Altona, und doch wollen wir eine Nation sein’.
73 Apart from the regional dissemination, the seasonal changes were also of importance. In Vienna, for example, dance and dance music boomed during Carnival in February, meanwhile during Passiontide in April and also in the summer season there was comparatively little, as Alice M. Hanson proved on the basis of music impost (Alice M. Hanson, Die zensurierte Muse. Musikleben im Wiener Biedermeier (Vienna: Böhlau, 1987), p. 180).
74 To what extent such industrial changes were reflected in the dynamics of dances newly in fashion may be explored in future studies.