Johann Strauss II - Kaiser-Walzer (Emperor Waltz), Op. 437

Strauss often played in the glittering Imperial balls, conducting the orchestra and playing the first violin at the same time.   The majestic launch of this fascinating waltz presents the backdrop of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the hegemony of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph in 1888. Johann Strauss II was Music Director of the Dance Hesperides of the Imperial Court from 1863 to 1872 and composed on occasion for the celebration of an imperial anniversary. The ingenuity of the melody of the Emperor Waltz, which was originally orchestrated for a full orchestra, is such that it was easily adapted for the four or five instruments of a chamber ensemble by the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg in 1925. This waltz is a tender and somewhat melancholic work, which at times turns its gaze nostalgically to the old Vienna. The waltz praises the majesty and dignity of the old monarch, who was fully devoted to his people. It begins with a majestic, magnificent march, which soon re
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Johann Strauss II - Introduction


The works made up by members of the Strauss family are a wondrous as well as valuable bridge between folk and scholarly expressions of music.

Spearheaded by the numerous waltzes prepared by Johann Strauss II - in the catalogue of his works there are about four hundred - the most famous Viennese musical dynasty of the 19th century, was the only catalyst thanks to which a dance of rather humble origin was transformed into the all-light object of the desire for entertainment of the entire Austro-Hungarian, aristocracy initially, and ultimately, regardless of discrimination and stratifications, the whole civilized world.

Johan Strauss, the son, transformed the waltz into a great expression of the art of music, with a symphonic character, capable of captivating both the concert halls and the dance halls. He was rightly called the King of Waltz. The waltz dominated the thought and heart of the younger Strauss, but he did not fail to endow with his inspirations and other short works of musical or dance magnificence such as marches, polkas, cantrilies.

But the operettas he signed are not of minor value.

His elegant, witty music was challenged and considered light and naive. But what greater vindication than the well-confessed admiration of Brahms, Wagner, Shenberg, Berg and Webern?


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