Isaac Strauss, Polka sur La Belle Hélène, Arr. CPE Strauss

From www.cpestrauss.com
https://www.cpestrauss.com/lmusic/pol...

Polka sur La Belle Hélène, Isaac Strauss, Arr. CPE Strauss
Pariser Leben, Quadrille, Isaac Strauss, Arr. CPE Strauss

My orchestration from piano scores of these two pieces by Isaac Strauss, neither of which I had actually planned to do and certainly not one after the other.

Isaac Strauss (no relation, the surname was coincidental) was an important player in the French music scene. His career was at its height after Musard’s retirement and throughout the Second Empire period. He was director of the Opera Balls and many other similar events during this period, often conducting an orchestra of more than 100 players. He composed a lot of dance music, all of which has fallen into oblivion. Most of the pieces I have been able to find are arrangements of popular operas and operettas, notably by Offenbach, as quadrilles, marches, waltzes and polkas.

I was planning on doing one of his original waltzes but the ones I found were a bit uninspiring. Maybe later. I decided to do one of the Offenbach polkas and this one is the result. Here I start feeling a bit guilty. I normally at least try to sound like the composer whose work I am doing, but not here. I did listen to some of his arrangements on Youtube, assuming what I was listening to was genuine Strauss, and I couldn’t bear to do that to Offenbach. Just too heavy and without any sparkle. I arranged the polka for my usual 1860’s Viennese orchestra, which is only about 40 strong. Any lack of sparkle is entirely down to me, but now there’s not really much of Isaac Strauss left.

So having finished that, I was in the mood for some more Offenbach so I thought I would do the Eduard Strauss, Pariser Leben Quadrille Op. 24. It was quite hard to find but I eventually found a Berlin piano edition of the Pariser Leben quadrille by Strauss. At this point I fell into the trap laid for me by Strauss and his publisher and assumed it was the Eduard Strauss quadrille. It was only when I started orchestrating it and it didn’t sound familiar that the penny dropped. I should have spotted the lack of an E (but the Strauss family played the same game when advertising concerts), an opus number and that it was a non-Straussian publisher but the fact that this is a six movement German/Austrian style quadrille rather than a five movement French one didn’t help. Presumably either Strauss or the publisher added the fifth movement for the German market. (Incidentally, the five movement version is available on youtube. Too heavy and too fast)

Having started it I thought I might as well finish it, in more or less Viennese style, so here it is.

Two mongrels bearing not much resemblance to Isaac Strauss.

I know one shouldn’t judge by appearances but if I didn’t know which was which, I think I’d guess from the pictures who wrote the light and frothy operettas and who murdered them!