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Composer: Strauss, Eduard

O schone Jugendzeit!, Op. 262

Conductor: Georgiadis, John

Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, Pardubice

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Playing Time: 00:04:55

Catalogue Number: NVF0093

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Just three hours after a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on 24 November 1889, the Great Hall of the Vienna Musikverein was sold out for Eduard Strauss's afternoon benefit concert. This popular musical event was further enhanced by the participation of the beneficiary's brother Johann, giving the first Viennese performance under his own direction of his Kaiser-Walzer ('Emperor Waltz').

In light of this, it is perhaps surprising to read the opinion of the Wiener Tagblatt's critic that it was primarily Eduard's own compositions 'which received the warmest and most sympathetic reception, in particular the French polka O schone Jugendzeit, which was performed for the first time. It is a dance piece as fresh as it is tunefuland should soon be heard in every ballroom.' The Neues Wiener Tagblatt concurred, noting that the new polka 'met with great approval and three encores were demanded.' O schone Jugendzeit was initially published by Eduard himself, following a split with his publisher August Cranz in 1888, and it bore a dedication to the Spanish aristocrat, musicologist, music critic and composer Guillermo Morphy y Ferriz de Guzman (1836-1899).