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Chapter 18 - 1887–1888 Return to Bayreuth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2017

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Summary

The concert on 19 December 1886, with its programme drawn appropriately from the Vienna-based composers Beethoven, Heuberger and Fuchs, was Hans Richter's one hundredth Philharmonic concert. Just before it took place, he wrote a letter to the orchestra which shows the excellent relationship between the conductor and his men. He referred to the famous Viennese brothers Johann and Josef Schrammel, who by 1886 had a tavern quartet of two violins, guitar and clarinet and had added the word Schrammelmusik to Vienna's musical language. They had begun as a trio in 1878 and in 1884 wrote a Hans Richter March. They mainly played old Austrian folk music at beer gardens, wine festivals and inns; among their keenest admirers were Richter, Brahms, Johann Strauss and Emperor Franz Josef. Although these groups dated back to the Middle Ages, when they were used to spread music and news up and down the banks of the Danube, by the late nineteenth century they were called Schrammel quartets. The clarinet was replaced in 1893 by the accordion.

From the newspaper I understand that you wish to celebrate my one hundredth Philharmonic concert. It gives me great pleasure and pride to know that you deem my achievement so worthy but I feel I am still too young to celebrate a Jubilee even though the top of my head already shows signs of several thoughtful general pauses! If I should be granted a two hundredth Philharmonic concert to conduct, then in God's name celebrate; I'd then be old enough to be forgiven the pleasure of such vanity. So, I ask you to observe Sunday as an ordinary concert day, i.e. with fullest enthusiasm for the job in hand and otherwise to make no fuss. However I shall gladly take this opportunity once again to take it easy with you afterwards; after so much serious and often difficult work, real jollity can only do us all good. So let's fix a definite place to meet – just amongst ourselves – on Sunday. There we shall hear how superbly a splendid tavern band [Schrammeln] plays those incomparable waltzes by Lanner. I can offer you nothing better.

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Hans Richter , pp. 231 - 244
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2016

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