Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II wrote the waltzes, polkas and operettas that fixed three-quarter time at the centre of nineteenth-century dance music, from The Blue Danube and Tales from the Vienna Woods to Die Fledermaus.
Known as the Waltz King, he composed more than five hundred waltzes, polkas, quadrilles and marches, plus operettas such as Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron. The music is built for ballroom and stage: buoyant rhythm, singing melody and a Viennese lilt. Dance numbers drawn from the stage works, among them Rosen aus dem Süden and the Kuss-Walzer, keep the same easy brilliance as the free-standing waltzes and polkas.
Compositions by Johann Strauss II appear on
Twenty-Five (DVD)
After a break from the Chopin Op. 10 études and Godowsky studies, David Stanhope returns to some of the most fiendish piano repertoire: the Godowsky Studies on Chopin's Études, Op. 25.