Plodding About the Waltz

Now among the most recognizable pieces of music in Western culture, the Blue Danube Waltz (play it as you read on) was only a mild success at its opening performance in 1867. Penned after Austria's devastating loss to the Prussians earlier the year before, the waltz would eventually be seen as the masterpiece of its composer, Johann Strauss (II), and is now prized as one of Austria's iconic themes.

Johann Strauss II

But what is in a waltz? Is it simply a moving piece about a river, or is the Blue Danube a name affixed to nothing more than fine dancing music? 'Certainly not,' as most could say; at the very least the melodic, ebbing notes quite recognizably emulate the movements of a river. But why then the Blue Danube, why the martial undertones and the (at times) compulsorily paced nature of the piece?

More than simply being a waltz or a waltz about a river, I would hazard that Strauss' Blue Danube is about geopolitics and culture. That it is a nation's waltz with itself as the looming question of Hungarian representation approaches, amid a growing and potentially explosive self-awareness of the numerous pan-Slavic ethnicities that comprise Austria's territory.

The piece opens with a meeting of two parties, perhaps of Austria and Hungary, or of it with Modernity or even History. The two parties meet with mild apprehension, even underlying hostility in their subdued introduction. Regardless, the waltz goes on in all pomp and civility, held together with the same grace and finesse as the Danube that binds the polyglot empire.

The waltz is a combination of themes; of culture, of militarism, and of lament. On the one hand, it is a classical piece hearkening back to Austria's rich cultural past. This was after all the nation that had given the world Mozart and Schubert and Rottmayr, Doppler and (albeit soon afterward) Brentano and Freud. It had brought culture and civilization to south-central Europe, and had long been considered a bastion of the West against that which was considered Eastern and 'un-European.'

But times were changing. As a society Strauss' Blue Danube culture was in danger of being torn apart from within, by liberalization and nationalist stirrings. Whereas a century before a Rumanian, a Croat, a Ruthenian, and a Czech could all proudly call themselves 'Austrian,' the Pan-Slavism that developed following the tumultuous times of Napoleon was calling the interests of a German Habsburg dynasty into question. Barely held together by its fraying national culture and an outmoded sense of medieval propriety, out of necessity the Danube becomes the metaphorical tie that binds together this otherwise unnatural amalgam of peoples forced together by a millennium of history.

And what a history it was! Rising in the form of the Holy Roman Empire a thousand years before, the Habsburg dynasty had bested its rival neighbors and forged a relatively mighty empire in Europe's center; it had kept back the dreaded Turk at Vienna's very gates, and defended the interests of the Catholic Church when the continent was embroiled in the upheaval of Reformation.

As the Blue Danube carries itself along, its classical overtures are intermittently jostled along by a jaunty martial step. While recalling past glories and military triumphs, it also echoes the militarism fast rising among Europe's great and fading powers, a foreshadowing of the cataclysmic conflict to come, and one which Austria is seemingly destined to lose. Having outlived its progeny in Holland, Spain, France and Mexico, the Empire would likewise live to see the consolidation of its former German fiefdoms into a newly united, very-much Prussian Germany, now inevitable after the debacle of 1866.

More than just a dance the waltz is a reminisce, a basking in the fading light of an ending age. Fearsome modernity lay ahead, and with it the daunting uncertainty of mechanization, of revolution, of an unprecedented violence and upheaval of a sort the Habsburgs had fatefully risen from. It becomes a sort of hellish revelry in the face of impending doom, shoved on by that self-destructive martial air that carries it inexorably, sorrowfully forward. There lies ahead the empty promise of glory with a heavy appreciation for glory past, but nonetheless the dance is tainted with that unshakable feeling that this may well be the last waltz. Yes, stripped to the last of its majesty all the Austrian Empire has left is to dance, to revel in its rich culture before its abrupt and fantastic end.

This article is actually a repost from the Y! Associated Content site; no worries though, it's all Dan Rudy, from 'Now' to 'end.'