EDWARD WOOLARD (Baritone)
THE STATION OCTET
UNQUESTIONABLY the best known of Johann
Strauss' hundreds of dance tunes, the * Blue Danube ' might safely claim for itself the position of the best known, and even the best. waltz in existence. Strauss, as most listeners will remember, was Director of the Court Balls at Vienna. where he had an excellent band. composing industriously for many years not only most of the dance music for the balls, but comic operas and other pieces, all instinct with the same sparkling rhythm and the same inexhaustible fund of joyous melody. But popular as many of them are. none has earned quite so striking a tribute from one of the sister arts as this. Mr. Arnold Bennett calls the ' Blue Danube ' waltz :
' That unique classic of the ballroom which, more than any other work of art. unites all Western nations in a common delight.'