Strauss, Johann. (1804 - 1849)
Rare Printed 1849 Funeral Announcement
The original printed death announcement on the death of the famed Austrian composer who developed the waltz in the form and style we associate with the family name. 20.5 X 26 cm. A few minor tears or losses, crease, separation along crease at bottom left quarter. Overall in fine condition and an extremely rare survival."Immediately after the 1849 Vienna Carnival the elder Johann Strauss and his orchestra of 31 players left Vienna by steamship for Linz, and embarked upon a four-month concert tour through Germany and Belgium, arriving again in England. After a two-and-a-half-month tour, comprising performances in and around London and in Brighton, Richmond, Reading, Oxford and Cheltenham, he returned to Vienna. On 22 September he had been due to perform his Radetzky-Bankett-Marsch at a banquet for Field-Marshal Radetzky, given by the Vienna Municipal Council in the Redoutensaal of the Imperial Hofburg Palace, but he failed to appear. The reason was noted by his publisher, Carl Haslinger, on the unfinished manuscript of the work: ‘During the instrumentation of this march Strauss Father became ill with scarlet fever and died three days later’. He died on 25 September 1849 at the apartment in the Kumpfgasse he shared with Emilie, after contracting the illness from one of their illegitimate offspring. 100,000 Viennese followed his funeral procession and lined the route, while The Illustrated London News (13 October 1849) concluded its obituary for him: ‘If there had been no Strauss, we should not have had Musard or Jullien. Hosts of imitators have sprung up since Strauss, but to him will remain the glory of originality, fancy, feeling and invention’." (Peter Kemp, Grove Online) (3654)
Ephemera Classical Music