Date of composition: 1910-1911
Premiere: of the waltz sequence not documented; the premiere of the opera took place of the opera took place on 26 January 1911 at the Royal Dresden Opera House under the direction of Ernst von Schuch.
Duration: 8 minutes
Performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker:
for the first time on 13 March 1917 under the direction of the composer
An artwork in more ways than one: with the full mastery of their respective crafts, Munich composer Richard Strauss and Viennese writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal set out to create something in which almost nothing is “authentic,” yet everything together feels true – a piece in which appearances do not deceive, but rather reveal. According to Hofmannsthal, it was “the secret wish to create a whole that is half-imaginary, half-real” that lay behind the earliest sketches for their comic opera. The Vienna of 1760, during the reign of Maria Theresa, was to come to life in their creation.
The journey to this imagined past took the collaborators through so many detours and intermediate stops that the coherence of the final result seems almost miraculous. Hofmannsthal, inspired by his friend Harry Graf Kessler, drew on literary, artistic, and cultural motifs ranging from Molière to Alfred de Musset, from Goethe to the Viennese suburban theatre. From the very beginning, Hofmannsthal influenced the musical design of the opera, and the waltz melodies that Strauss later developed extensively were particularly inspired by his suggestions: “Come up with an old-fashioned, part-sweet, part-cheeky Viennese waltz for the last act – it must weave through the entire act,” he wrote on 24 April 1909.
These waltzes became the most popular music from Der Rosenkavalier, but also the main target of its critics – not least because they stood out as such an obvious anachronism. After all, when Maria Theresa ruled the Habsburg Empire, the Viennese waltz didn’t yet exist. At the Italian premiere at Milan’s La Scala, the waltzes even sparked a scandal: at the end of the second act, loud protests rang out from the gallery. When the composer asked why the young people were “so angry,” the director explained during the interval: “Because of the waltz. ... At La Scala, the audience only tolerates the Viennese waltz in ballet.”
More than twenty years after the opera’s premiere, Strauss published the “Waltz Sequence from Act 3.” Towards the end of the Second World War, when opera performances became impossible for an unforeseeable period, he adapted further music from Der Rosenkavalier for the less elaborate concert stage. This resulted in a compilation of waltz themes from Acts 1 and 2 with an introductory section, titled “Waltz Sequence No. 1” in accordance with their appearance in the opera. The earlier compilation of music from Act 3 was then retitled “Waltz Sequence No. 2.”
In the latter, the potpourri we hear today, echoes can be heard of Baron Ochs preparing in the tavern for his Tête-à-tête with the supposed “Mariandel” (actually Octavian in disguise). It includes reminiscences of the Baron’s lively waltz (“mein Leiblied”) and concludes with the sublime trio (“Hab mir’s gelobt, ihn lieb zu haben in der richtigen Weis’”). Though not a waltz at first glance, the trio, too, unfolds in triple metre.