Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier (1911)

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier (1911)

arranged by Otto Singer (1863-1931)

A minor satellite whose professional activity revolved round that of the mighty Richard Strauss, Otto Singer was responsible for the voice-and-piano arrangements of all the operas published in his lifetime except Der Rosenkavalier. He more than made up for that omission by writing a solo-piano transcription of the whole work, producing a variety of orchestral and instrumental arrangements of its many waltzes, and putting together the score for the film in 1926. Singer’s sequence of Rosenkavalier waltzes for piano solo, which Strauss himself recorded on piano roll, dates from as early as 1911.

Although it begins with an allusion to the heroic Octavian theme from the introduction to the opera - an idea taken up and developed by Strauss in his own Rosenkavalier waltz sequence thirty three years later - Singer’s selection of waltz tunes is dominated by Baron Ochs’s favourite seduction song, “Mit mir,” which he first gets to sing to the unfortunate Sophie in the middle of the second act. Other waltzes, chosen no doubt to offset its exuberant vulgarity, include one derived from the Octavian theme and the decorous number that accompanies Octavian and the Marschallin’s breakfast in the first act as well as four others from the action-packed inn scene in the third act. Given Strauss’s inexhaustible waltz-time brilliance, the fact that it is anachronistically applied to an opera set in mid-eighteenth century Vienna is beside the point.