Austrian conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt has been one of classical music’s great iconoclasts now for well over 50 years. Always challenging our preconceptions, he invariably comes up with something fresh and this delightful double disc is no exception. His stated aim is to create a “revolution” in the way we listen to 19th-century dance music, and in particular the waltz which he sees as reflecting a social shift from high-brow, concert hall fare to a genuinely egalitarian music. He also makes a good case that Strauss and Lanner’s dance bands may well have outshone the Viennese court and theatre orchestras in technique and ability to master a wide repertoire.

So how does he go about convincing us? First of all, he uses Concentus Musicus Wien, his own period band. That smaller, leaner string tone helps, but in addition, Harnoncourt conjures up all manner of different tones with no less than ten different types of trumpet and five different types of clarinet! In a word, he takes the “sound” seriously and I must say he has a great deal of fun along the way.

His starting point is Mozart’s late dance music which frequently utilises “Turkish” instrumentation to express Austria’s confidence in its historical conflict against the Ottoman Empire. Brass, piccolos and percussion whip up quite a storm in these charming miniatures. The first disc concludes with five numbers by Johann Strauss the Elder including a rollicking Radetzky March, tighter than usual
perhaps but no less engaging.

The second disc is devoted to the under-recorded music of Joseph Lanner, beginning with a seriously good arrangement of ballet music by the opera composer, Mercadante. Among the remaining collection of waltzes and polkas a highlight has to be the gothic Hexentanzwalzer which, in its own way, covers the same ground as Berlioz’s Witches’ Sabbath. Knockout.