The Vienna Philharmonic Fanfare was composed by Richard Strauss (1864-1949) for the Vienna Philharmonic Ball and premiered on March 4, 1924. The score is marked: “Dedicated to the lovely, wonderful Vienna Philharmonic.”

Richard Strauss is said to have been tempted in his statements about his instrumentation to “play down the complex connections between composing and instrumentation to a routine process primarily based on technical craftsmanship, which did not even begin to do justice to the v...