Gold und Silber (Gold and Silver) Waltz

Like many of the most popular Viennese composers of his day, Franz Lehár came from a military-musical background. Born in Hungary, he had to spend years as a bandmaster before leaving military service and settling in Vienna in 1902. His timing was perfect, however. Taste for the characteristically vertiginous one-in-a-bar waltz cultivated by the Strauss family was waning in favour of something more sensuous and more romantic, something that swayed rather than swirled. Although it contains some glitteringly lively episodes too, the gliding melodic style of the Gold und Silber Waltz – written for a ball with a “gold and silver” theme at the Sofiensaal in the 1902 carnival season – was just what was required. It established Lehár’s reputation immediately. Three years later he wrote The Merry Widow, which includes an even more sentimental waltz and which was to become the most successful of all Viennese operettas.