New Year’s Concert
François-Xavier Roth Johann Strauss Jr.
Maurice Ravel

The Viennese waltz took shape in the hands of Johann Strauss Sr., but it was his son, Johann Strauss Jr. (1825–1899), who made it an international sensation. With waltzes such as An der schönen blauen Donau (1866) and Wein, Weib & Gesang(1869), as well as dance pieces like Tritsch-Tratsch Polka (1858), he gave Vienna a musical legacy that continues to thrive.

As the Viennese waltz flourished, a new popular genre emerged in Paris. German-born Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880) composed nearly 100 operettas from the 1850s onward, and Johann Strauss Jr. was among those who successfully brought the genre to Vienna. Offenbach’s Barcarolle comes from his final and most famous operetta, The Tales of Hoffmann(1880).

Émile Waldteufel (1837–1915), nicknamed “the French Strauss,” infused the Viennese waltz tradition with a lighter, distinctly French touch. His most famous work, Les Patineurs (1882), or The Skaters’ Waltz, was inspired by ice skating in the Bois de Boulogne, a park in Paris. His Grande Vitesse (1876), meaning High Speed, is a galop, a dance form with roots in Paris.

French opera and orchestral composers also drew inspiration from the Viennese waltz, as seen in Camille Saint-Saëns’ (1835–1921) Valse from the opera Le Timbre d’argent. Other highlights from the French orchestral repertoire of the time include Emmanuel Chabrier’s (1841–1894) Joyeuse Marche (1888) and Ambroise Thomas’ (1811–1896) Overture to Mignon.

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) composed La valse shortly after World War I, in the wake of Vienna’s decline as a powerful imperial city. Many early listeners perceived dark undertones, interpreting the piece as a portrayal of Viennese culture’s collapse. Ravel, however, denied this—he insisted that La valse was a tribute to Vienna and its celebrated waltz tradition.