An der schönen blauen Donau

Waltz: An der schönen blauen Donau (By the Beautiful Blue Danube), Op.314

As well as being the earliest waltz in the programme, The Blue Danube is also the most famous. Written in 1867, it has achieved the status of a Viennese folksong, or anthem even. Although the original version, written for the Vienna Men’s Choral Association, has fairly frivolous words supplied by the Association’s poet Josef Seyl, the choral version usually performed today has a new text which, added in 1890, confirms the depth of the local sentiment inspired by the waltz in the meantime. But that doesn’t have the splendid coda which in the orchestral version recapitulates and develops the main themes of four of the five sections, referring back to the leisurely introduction and effortlessly completing a perfectly integrated construction.

The Blue Danube is the most famous of all waltzes. Written in 1867, it has achieved the status of a Viennese folk song, or anthem even. Although the original version, written for the Vienna Men’s Choral Association, has fairly frivolous words attached to it, the choral version usually performed today has a new text which, added in 1890, confirms the depth of the local sentiment inspired by the waltz in the meantime. But that doesn’t have the splendid coda which in the orchestral version recapitulates and develops the main themes of four of the five main sections, referring back to the leisurely introduction and effortlessly completing a perfectly integrated construction. Johann II’s melodic genius was such that even if the river itself were to dry up Vienna and the Danube would be inseparable.

Although the Strauss family tended to avoid the rondo form adopted by Weber in the Invitation to the Dance, his idea of linking several waltz tunes together became one of their guiding principles. This most famous of all Viennese waltzes - written originally in a rather different form for the Vienna Men’s Choral Association in 1867 - consists of many as five distinct waltz-time sections in succession, each one of them based on two different themes and none of them recalled before the sequence is complete. What gives it its symphonic stature is the slow introduction with its seductive anticipations of the main theme and, following the fifth waltz, the splendid coda which recalls and briefly develops the main themes of four of the five sections, referring back to the leisurely introduction and effortlessly completing a perfectly integrated construction.