THE B.B.C. ORCHESTRA
(Section C)
(Led by F. WEIST HILL )
Conducted by EDWARD CLARK
VIENNA was the nursery of the waltz, and has always been regarded as its home, but Vienna was not its birthplace. It came originally from Germany and was dn its original form a German country-dance. The Ländler, for which Schubert and Beethoven, amongst others, wrote music, was the name these particular country dances went by. Joseph Lanner , who was born near Vienna in 1801, has always been considered the father of the waltz. He wrote a quantity of very delightful dance music, particularly waltzes, some of which are still as popular as ever they were. He not only wrote these tunes, but formed a band to play them, so successfully that Lanner and his Band toured the Continent for years and were welcome in every city in Europe.
One of the first men he engaged for his little orchestra was a viola p]ayer of the name of Johann Strauss ; this was Johann the elder, and in a short time Strauss began writing dance music himself and formed his own band. He was more successful even than Lanner, and his career reads like a romance. He was a favourite in every court in Europe, and the 150 odd waltzes that he wrote, to say nothing of other dances, practically dominated the ball-rooms of the entire world. Of his three sons, Johann, Josef, and Eduard. the first is the most famous, though they were all inexhaustible composers of dance tunes. Johann the younger is, indeed, the most famous of the whole family. Not a day passes, scarcely an hour, when the wavelengths of the world are not vibrating to some of the music, written by Johann Strauss. He is a composer, too, of a number of operas, of which we know only Die Fledermaus and the Gypsy Baron, which in their own sphere are as deathless as Don Giovanni and Fidelio. In Vienna, his birthplace and his kingdom, there is no artist more vividly or more affectionately remembered.