The Blue Danube:
A study in persistent inappropriateness
It is 6:30 a.m. The gate for flight OS 370 to Vienna crackles to life. In the pallid terminal light, a congregation of yawns and sleepy faces suggests a collective mood that is, to put it mildly, not really one of excessive musical joy. The very concept of a waltz feels like a personal affront. And then, as one is herded into the cabin, passing the bright-red flight attendants, from the speakers it booms An der schönen, blauen Donau.
This piece, the global shorthand for Viennese elegance, was actually born from a series of magnificent failures. Composed in 1867 on a commission from the Vienna Men’s Choral Association, the piece originally had as much to do with the Danube as your average desert. Its first version was set to a text of profound resignation: “Ei, Fasching ist da/ Ach so, na ja!” (“Oh, Carnival is here… oh really, I see!”). This was not a call to dance, but a shrug set to music, perfectly capturing the national mood after Austria had lost the Battle of Königgrätz. Balls were cancelled; the people, much like today’s airline passenger at dawn, were not in the mood.
Its premiere was held in the hall of the historic Dianabad, an indoor swimming pool that, in a fitting metaphor for lukewarm receptions, could not be adequately heated in winter. While Strauss biographers love to tell the myth of a complete flop, it was actually a success. However, its true victory lap began shortly after at the Paris World Expo, where it effortlessly outshone the official expo hymn, written by none other than Gioachino Rossini, a piece that hardly anyone performs today.
Johann Strauss II, the man behind this global earworm, was a paradox – refreshingly self-deprecating and the first to be surprised by his own genius. After hearing the pianist Alfred Grünfeld play his Frühlingsstimmen waltz, Strauss remarked, “Wow, this piece is not nearly as beautiful as you play it!” Of his brother Josef, he conceded, “I am more popular, but he is more talented!” He was, in essence, the first to be surprised by his own genius.
Contemporary critics, it seems, were equally surprised, albeit in the wrong way. The venerable Eduard Hanslick found him “rather uninventive”. His own father, Johann Strauss I, wrote off his sons, declaring they had “not a trace of talent”. This alleged lack of talent was so potent that Strauss once composed the entire Accelerationen waltz on the back of a restaurant menu in 30 minutes, moments after confessing he hadn’t written a single note for a commission due that very evening. Masterpieces simply “happened” to him, often during lunch. He also hated public appearances, once remarking, “I’d rather compose 10 waltzes than give a single speech.”
One can only imagine his horror at the thought of his work being used to awaken comatose airline travellers before they’ve even been served a plastic-wrapped croissant. His admirers, however, were formidable. Johannes Brahms, a man not so much known for his sense of humour, once autographed a fan’s programme with the note, “Unfortunately not by Johannes Brahms,” in reference to The Blue Danube. This is the highest form of compliment: the grudging, envious admiration from a master of a more “serious” craft for the man who perfected joy.
The waltz’s final, ironic triumph was its cosmic repurposing in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. There, it accompanies a spaceship docking with a station – a ballet of sterile, silent precision, a million miles from the swirling Viennese ballroom.
Back on OS 370, cruising altitude has been reached. One hour to Vienna, chocolates are being distributed. One wonders how long the journey took Herr Strauss in 1867… The answer, of course, is irrelevant. He never needed to make it. He simply sent the music ahead, where it now waits, eternally and inappropriately, for us to arrive; two hundred years after his birth on 25 October 1825, one suspects Strauss would be quietly amused to find that The Blue Danube still manages to elicit a response – even at 30,000 feet.
Florian Riem
