Johann Strauss II - Einzugsmarsch aus "Der Zigeunerbaron"

On 24 October 1885 the curtain rose on the world première of Johann Strauss's tenth operetta, Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron). The reporter for the Fremden-Blatt (25.10.1885) recognised the entire evening as "a great triumph for the composer", and the packed house applauded jubilantly throughout the performance.

Among the many musical and visual highlights which so enchanted the first night audience at the Theater an del Wien more than one hundred years ago was the spectacle, towards the close of Act 2, of Hussars and enlisted Hungarian soldiers setting off together to join in the war against Spain. (This is, in fact, one of the few historical inaccuracies in the operetta, for during the Austrian War of Succession, 1740-48. Imperial troops never set foot in Spain.) Act 3 takes place two years later: the war is over and the victorious Hungarian troops are given an heroic welcome as they enter Vienna to the accompaniment of Strauss's spirited and rhythmic choral entrance march, "Hurrah die Schlacht mitgemacht hab'n wir im fernen Land" ('Hurrah, we have taken part in the battle in a distant land').

With his score for Der Zigeunerbaron, Johann Strauss scaled fresh artistic heights from which, as the critic for the influential Die Presse (25.10.1885) noted, "there remains only a short step to opera". Yet, for a composer who lacked intuitive dramatic instinct and thus never fully became a man of the theatre, Strauss showed an uncharacteristic concern for theatrical detail in his dealings with the Zigeunerbaron librettist, Ignaz Schnitzel (1839-1921) - and never more so than with his 'vision' for the final Act of this operetta. During summer 1885 Johann interrupted work on Der Zigeunerbaron with a trip to Berlin to conduct jubilee performances of his operettas Die Fledermaus (1874), Der lustige Krieg (The Merry War, 1881) and Eine Nacht in Venedig (A Night in Venice, 1883). Before returning to Vienna to work on the final preparations for the première of Der Zigeunerbaron at the Theater an del Wien, Johann wrote to Schnitzel from Berlin on 12/13 September 1885: "The entrance march must be imposing. About 80-200 soldiers (on foot, on horseback), camp followers (in Spanish, Hungarian and Viennese dress), common-folk, children with shrubs and flowers - which latter they scatter before the returning soldiers, etc. etc., must appear; the stage opened right back to the Papageno-Tor [an architectural feature of the Theater an der Wien] - it must be a scene which is much, much more splendid than it was in 'Feldprediger' [Carl Millöcker's 1884 operetta of this name] - since this time we want to imagine an Austrian army & people in a joyful mood because of a victory they have won!".

Johann Strauss himself conducted the première of Der Zigeunerbaron on 24 October 1885, and thus also presided over the first performance of the Act 3 (No. 17) Einzugsmarsch in its original choral setting. Six weeks later, the composer's brother Eduard conducted the Strauss Orchestra in the first concert performance of this stirring piece, arranged for orchestra alone, when it opened the second half of Eduard's Sunday afternoon concert in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein on 6 December 1885. Members of the enraptured audience were able to buy copies of the Einzugsmarsch when the piano score of the work went on sale from C.A. Spina's Vienna publishing house on 12 December 1885.

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