Waltz Sequence No. 1 from ‘Der Rosenkavalier’

Program notes

About the Work

Richard Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavalier, first staged in Dresden in 1911, is a comedy of love and time set in the aristocratic Vienna of the Empress Maria Theresa. One of its delicious anachronisms is that it is awash with waltzes, a dance that belongs to nineteenth-century Vienna rather than the 1740s world the opera depicts, but which Strauss deployed gloriously to evoke a dreamlike, nostalgic ‘Vienna of the imagination.’ These waltzes, above all those attached to the boorish, comic Baron Ochs, give the opera much of its lilt and sparkle, and they were soon irresistible candidates for the concert hall.

Strauss himself drew two concert waltz sequences from the score so that this music could be heard on its own. This First Waltz Sequence (Erste Walzerfolge) stitches the great waltz tunes into a single continuous, richly orchestrated showpiece, and it has remained a favourite ever since: a glittering distillation of the opera’s charm that needs no knowledge of the plot to enchant.

What to Listen For

This is pure orchestral delight, and the pleasures are immediate. Listen for the way Strauss spins one waltz melody into the next, the music swirling and dipping with Viennese grace, never quite settling before another tune sweeps in. The orchestration is the marvel: shimmering strings, glinting harp and celesta, suave woodwind solos and warm horns, all handled with the effortless mastery of the man who was perhaps the greatest orchestrator of his age.

Keep an ear out for the lazy, lilting waltz associated with Baron Ochs: heavy-footed and self-satisfied, it is one of the opera’s signature tunes. Above all, savour the sense of bittersweet nostalgia that hovers over the whole piece: even at its most exuberant, this is music tinged with the awareness that the gilded world it conjures is already slipping into the past. The sequence builds, as a good Viennese waltz set must, to a sweeping, full-orchestra flourish.