Der Rosenkavalier - First Sequence of Waltzes

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Der Rosenkavalier - First Sequence of Waltzes

Although he was born and trained as a musician in Munich and was in no way related to the Strauss family in Vienna, Richard Strauss was an enthusiastic and highly expert composer of waltzes - if not for their own sake then at least as episodes in longer works. Ironically, however, in the Strauss opera where the waltz is most prominently featured it is historically out of place. It is true that Der Rosenkavalier is set in Vienna but it is the Vienna of Maria Theresa in the mid-18th century, when the Viennese waltz as we know it simply didn’t exist, even though its Ländler and Deutsche forbears certainly did. In the kind of society inhabited by the principal characters of Der Rosenkavalier - the young Count Octavian, the Marschallin (or Field Marshall’s wife) whom he thinks he loves, and Sophie van Faninal whom he finally marries - the minuet would have been all the rage.

Even so, the opportunity was too good to miss and, anachronistic and even satirically intended though they might be, the waltzes became the most popular aspect of Der Rosenkavalier from the day of its first performance in Dresden in 1911. Thirty-three years later, partly to make money and partly to displace other musicians’ piratical arrangements of his work, Strauss compiled a suite of waltzes from the first two acts of Der Rosenkavalier, calling it the First Sequence to distinguish it from an already existing suite of waltzes from the third act.

The sequence begins with a substantial extract from the introduction to the opera, featuring Octavian’s virile horn call and the more yielding Marschallin theme linked in what one might call a close embrace. The first of the waltzes, which accompanies their breakfast, is scored with almost eighteenth-century decorum for clarinets and bassoon. The waltz version of Octavian’s theme on solo violin is very respectable too, as is the elegant little dance that follows it. When Baron Ochs, Octavian’s boorish and absurdly optimistic rival for Sophie, appears on the scene the atmosphere changes - not immediately, since his favourite waltz tune is very quietly and very gently introduced by the strings, but in due course as it develops in both vitality and vulgarity, with pounding basses and scorching brass counterpoints, in a long-sustained approach to its climax.