The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-06-14
WALTZ MUSIC.
The Beautiful Strains Written for the Dance
Now So Universally Popular.

English Illustrated Magazine.
That the waltz is the most charming dance
ever invented is sufficiently proved by the guam
tlty of beautiful music in waltz form written by
modern composers, from Weber to Offenbach
ard from Beethoven to Brahms Like the tenn
perance fddlers of Krilof7s fable, who were
good men but bad musicians" Beethovens
waltzes are good as music, but detest-
able as music for dancing. Not so
the waltzes of Weber, the inventor or at least,
perfe ctor of the form, whose irresistible Invita-
ton to the Waltz still remains the most melo-
dious and most rhythmical specimen of this fas
cinating class of music. The Invitation to the
Waltz was not, it need scarcely be said written
as dance music; but waltz thatcannot be danced
to deserves to be put in the same category as
songs that cannot be sung; and Webers
typical monumental waltz at once the most
classical and most romantic example of the style
seems, as introduced with Berloz's orchestra
ton in that masters version of Der Freischutz,
to have been primarily written to suit the steps
of the dancers Beethoven's waltzes, with all
their beauty-which, since they are the work of
Beethoven, one is bound to admit-mght have
been written to accompany the steps of those
elephants who, in the circus of Imperial Rome,
were trained to walk on the tight rope.
Modern waltz music comes almost exclusively
from Vienna. Chopin, indeed, is the only com
poser not of Viennese origin who has written
perfect waltzes. Some of the Viennese waltz
makers were not, it is true, born at Vienna.
Gung1, for instance, was Hungarian But the
audience and at Vienna a beautiful
waltz is more readily appreciated than
elsewhere. Lanner, Labtzky and the
Strausses all belong by birth or by adoption to
Vienna. For the last sixty years all Europe has
danced to the music of waltzes by some member
of the Strauss family; by Johann Strauss the
elder, or Johann Strauss the younger, or by one
of the brothers of this younger Johann. Among
other groundless accusations brought against the
English by Heine (who, however, became recon
ciled to us before he died. is that of being unable
to waltz in time even to the music of Strauss. 1t
was on the authority of Johann the elder that
Heine made this charge, which in the present
day will be received with incredulity That the
Strausses possessed and that the younger mem
bers of the family still possess, a special apt-
tude for waltz composition, amounting almost to
genius, can scarcely be denied; and negative proof
of this is given by the comparative failure of
far greater composers, such as Donizett and
Verdi, who have both written formal waltzes,
the former in the third act of Don Pasquale,"
the latter in the first act of La Traviata.' OF
late years many composers have written waltz
have originated this style, which has been
continued with striking success by Arditi
Gounod, in his Romeo and Juliet" has
written for the heroine very charming waltz,
to which pedantic objection has been made on
the untenable ground that the WALK form was
not known in the days Of the Montagues and the
Capulets. The earliest specimen of the waltz
for the voice occurs, so far a. know, in Glnkas
second and last OPERA 'Rpslan Ludmla," pro-
duced in 1912.