Josef Lanner, the first of the great waltz kings of Vienna, was born in
the Austrian capital on April 12, 1801. When he was twelve he played the
violin in the band of Michael Pamer, a popular Viennese composer of that
day. In 1818 Lanner formed a trio which played in smaller cafés and at
the Prater. In 1819 the trio grew into a quartet with the addition of
the older Johann Strauss (father of the composer of _The Blue Danube_),
then only fifteen years old. Soon afterwards, the quartet was expanded
into a quintet. By 1824, Lanner’s ensemble was a full-sized orchestra
popular throughout Vienna, heard in such famous café houses as the
_Goldenen Rebbuhn_, and the _Gruenen Jager_, as well as at leading balls
and other gala social events in Vienna. The call for Lanner’s music was
so insistent that to meet the demand it soon became necessary to create
two orchestras; one led by Lanner, and the other by the elder Strauss.
Lanner remained an idol of Vienna until his death, which took place in
Oberdoebling, near Vienna, on April 14, 1843.
For his various ensembles and orchestras Lanner produced a wealth of
popular Viennese music: quadrilles, polkas, galops, marches, and more
than a hundred waltzes. It is in the last department that Lanner was
most important, for he was one of the first composers to carry the waltz
to its artistic fulfillment. With composers from Mozart to Schubert, the
waltz was only a three-part song form with a trio. Johann Hummel and
Karl Maria von Weber suggested a more spacious design by assembling
several different waltz tunes into a single integrated composition.
Lanner extended this form further. He prefaced each series of waltzes
with an introduction in which the theme of the main melody was often
suggested; after the waltz melodies had been presented, Lanner brought
his composition to completion with a coda which served as a kind of
summation of some of the ideas previously stated. Between the
introduction and the coda came the succession of lilting, lovable,
heart-warming waltz-melodies so remarkable for their grace, elegance,
freshness and poignancy that Lanner has sometimes been described as “the
Mozart of the dance.” Nevertheless, Lanner always emphasized soaring
lyricism where the elder Strauss was more partial to rhythm. The
Viennese used to say: “With Lanner, it’s ‘Pray dance, I beg you.’ With
Strauss it’s ‘You must dance, I command you!’”
The form which Lanner finally crystallized, and the style with which his
waltz music unfolded, were adopted by the two Johann Strausses, father
and son, who were destined to bring this type of Viennese music to its
ultimate development. Thus Lanner was the opening chapter of a musical
epoch. He was the dawn of Vienna’s golden age of waltz music.
Lanner’s most famous waltz is _Die Schoenbrunner_, op. 200, his swan
song. Other outstanding Lanner waltzes are: _Die Pesther_, op. 93, _Die
Werber_, op. 103, _Hofballtaenze_, op. 161, _Die Romantiker_, op. 167,
and _Abendsterne_, op. 180. “With Lanner,” wrote H. E. Jacob, “the
romantic epoch began for the waltz, and the flower-gardens and green
leaves of Spring penetrated into the ballroom. Lanner’s compositions are
unsophisticated and unpretentious, but his waltzes could no more be
commonplace than could a flower.”