Vienna, Women And Song

A feast of Viennese operetta on two Decca albums, newly remastered and reissued complete. Born in Bratislava – Pressburg, as it was in 1901 – Anton Paulik became a reassuring presence for decades in the pit at the ‘lighter’ Viennese lyric theatres, who could make the music of the ‘Waltz King’ and his successors sparkle and swirl like few others. In charge at the Volksoper one night in summer 1969, Paulik was ‘flawless and apparently ageless’ according to the critic for Opera, who got to the heart of the conductor’s gifts: he ‘knows how to play operettas so that they were whistled in the streets from the premiere onwards, and he knows how to make them sound respectable at the same time. In this respect he is comparable only with the Clemens Krauss of the famous Fledermaus recording’ (also reissued by Eloquence, 4827379). In 1958 Paulik and the Volksoper had recorded an album of excerpts from Emmerich Kálmán’s best-known hit, Grafin Märitza. This was done under studio conditions at the city’s Sofiensaal, but thoroughly ‘run in’ after performances of a new production at the Volksoper. Paulik’s presence on the podium was a guarantor of authenticity: he had led the premiere back in 1926 at the Theater an der Wien. Marcel Prawy, who was close to Kálmán during the composer’s last years, produced the recording for RCA (it first appeared on Decca in 1973). To get them in the proper mood, Prawy took the entire cast to the nearby Hungarian border at Lake Neusiedel. While searching for a

Tracks

1~1~The Blue Danube
1~2~Voices Of Spring
1~3~Vienna Bonbons
1~4~Wine, Women And Song
1~5~Roses From The South
1~6~Tales From The VIenna Woods
1~7~Emperor Waltz
1~8~Overture To "The Gypsy Baron"
1~9~Tritsch-Tratsch Polka
1~10~Excursion Train Polka
1~11~Persian March
1~12~Perpetual Motion
1~13~Pizzicato Polka
1~14~Annen Polka
1~15~Champagne Polka
1~16~Czardas, From "Die Fledermaus"
1~17~Egyptian March
1~18~New Pizzicato Polka
1~19~Leichtes Blut Polka
1~20~Thunder And Lightning Polka
1~21~Overture
1~22~Oh, For The Life Of An Actress
1~23~Stone Walls
1~24~What Ev'ry Woman Wants To Know
1~25~For Amusement At A Ball
1~26~A Most Successful Host - Laughing Song; First Impressions
1~27~Health And Happiness
1~28~Artist's Life
1~29~Where The Citrons Bloom
1~30~A Thousand And One Nights
1~31~Acceleration Waltz
1~32~Kiss Waltz
1~33~Morning Papers
1~34~Love Song Waltzes
1~35~Lagoon Waltz, From "A Night In Venice"
1~36~Vienna Blood

Details

Format: CD
Artist: Anton Paulik
Release Date: 10 May 2019
Genre: Classical Music
Label: ELOQUENCE / DECCA
Distributor: Universal Music