Johann Strauss : Russischer Marsch op. 426 (Russian March) - Riccardo Muti / Wiener Philharmoniker

The Russischer Marsch, one of Johann Strauss's 'characteristic marches', belongs to that group of new compositions with which the Viennese maestro charmed audiences attending his series of charity concerts in St. Petersburg in 1886. This trip to Russia, made at the invitation of the 'Russian Society of the Red Cross' and a children's charity, was to be Johann's final visit there, and came after a lapse of seventeen years since his last concert engagement at nearby Pavlovsk (1869). There had been many changes during the intervening years, and after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by Nihilists in 1881, the autocratic power had passed into the hands of his son, Alexander III (1845-94). The court society which surrounded the new Tsar may have known little of life in Russia thirty years earlier, but was well aware of Strauss's reputation as the darling of the public, and as a favourite of the Imperial family, through his triumphant 'Russian summers' at Pavlovsk during the years 1856-65. The appearance of the Viennese maestro in St. Petersburg in 1886 once again occasioned an outbreak of 'Strauss fever', with shops offering pictures, busts and statuettes of the conductor/composer, while one enterprising manufacturer even produced "Strauss Cigarettes" with Johann's likeness on the packet.



The venue for the 1886 charity concerts was the vast riding school of the Horse Guards Regiment in St. Petersburg, and the 80-strong orchestra of the Imperial Russian Opera had been provided for the concerts. While Professor K. Siecke was charged with the conducting of the symphonic portions of each programme, Johann conducted only his own compositions. The majority of the works he performed were those which had proved popular in Pavlovsk during the 1850s and 1860s, but these were supplemented by more recent works like the Brautschau-Polka (op. 417) and Schatz-Walzer (op. 418), both based on themes from his latest operetta success, Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron, 1885). In addition, Johann composed four new works especially for his 1886 Russian visit - 2 waltzes, a polka and a march. It was at his third concert, on 29 April 1886 (= 17 April, Russian calendar), that he unveiled his Marche des Gardes à Cheval (March of the Horse Guards), written as a tribute to the Tsar's bodyguard in whose riding school the concerts took place.



Although the Marche des Gardes à Cheval is without doubt "uniquely interesting", as the critic of the St. Petersburger Zeitung opined of this and the polka-mazurka Mon salut (= An der Wolga op. 425), its title does not really suit the character of the piece. Far from being a 'cavalry march', in the style of the Grossfürsten-Marsch (op.107, Volume 25 of this CD series) or the Caroussel-Marsch (op. 133, Volume 6) for example, this work is more descriptive of heavily-laden Russian foot-soldiers trudging wearily through the snow, even to the extent of the diminuendo at the end of the piece as the column of soldiers disappears into the distance. Thus, much more apposite was the name with which the march was rechristened for audiences in Vienna when Johann conducted its first performance there as an encore item during Eduard Strauss's benefit concert in the Musikverein on 7 November 1886: the Russischer Marsch. This was also the title under which August Cranz published the work, together with the composer's dedication to "his Majesty Alexander III, Emperor of Russia etc. etc".

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