Charivari (Gruber)

Charivari was initially thought as an orchestral showpiece based on the main motifs of the polka Perpetuum mobile by Johann Strauss II.

Because of this strong association, even though it is not included in the score, the Strauss polka is always played attacca before Charivari, as the composition's first bars are very similar to the Perpetuum mobile's ending.

But from today's standpoint his motif alarmingly calls to mind that official mask of Gemütlichkeit behind which post-Habsburg Austria has so often hidden its reactions to even the most drastic changes of fortune, and its complicity with some of them.The composition is dedicated to Barrie Gavin and was finished in Vienna on 7 December 1981.

Although the coda hastily restores it, and adds a fleeting reminder of Strauss's 'Wiener Blut', it no longer fulfils its concealing function.

The uglier facts of history cannot always be glossed over; and except perhaps for the tourist trade there's nothing to be gained from obsessively harking back to the 'good old days'.