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The Blue Danube is the common English title of An der schönen Blauen Donau op. 314 (By the Beautiful Blue Danube), a waltz by Johann Strauss the Younger, composed in 1867. It has been one of the most consistently popular pieces of music in the classical repertoire. It gained new popularity in 1968 as a result of its prominent use in the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick's influential film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was also prominently featured in the 1943 Warner Brothers cartoon, A Corny Concerto, starring Daffy Duck and the 2000 Japanese film, Battle Royale. A sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus takes advantage of the piece's fame, featuring, in typical Monty Python fashion, "the exploding version of the Blue Danube."
The waltz has its origins as a choral work for the Wiener Männergesang-verein (Vienna Mens' Choral Association) first promised by Strauss himself in 1865 but delayed until later in 1866 when he first sketched the first few bars and eventually presented to the Choral Association in 1867 as part of the song-programme annual event. The task of writing the text to accompany the music fell to Josef Weyl, who was the Association's poet and also Strauss' personal friend. The title to the waltz which listeners are familiar with today did not appear in Weyl's text as well as during its premiere on 15 February of that year at the Dianabad-Saal where it was presented as 'Waltz for chorus and orchestra by Johann Strauss, kk-Hofball-musikdirektor'. The words in fact first appeared when Eduard Hanslick used it 7 years after its first performance when he praised it as Austria's unofficial national anthem alongside Haydn's work which celebrates the Hapsburg Emperor and the Imperial family.
Its complete purely orchestral premiere was held on 10 March 1867 at the Vienna Volksgarten during a 'Carnival Revue of all dance pieces' by Johann Strauss, Josef Strauss and Eduard Strauss. During that premiere, the work's title was also not provided although there were hints that it was initially titled aptly 'Donauwalzer' hence its popular name in German because it was not until 1890 when the Choral Association's other poet Franz von Gernerth provided the words 'Donau so blau...' (Danube so Blue) in the revision of the choral text which was considered as mediocre at best which led to popular legends that the work's initial performance was a failure of which it remained unproven although posterity would have no difficulties in affirming its popularity. The waltz remains the penultimate item in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's Neujahrskonzert repertoire right before the final Johann Strauss I's 'Radetzky March' and almost certainly after the featured conductor's 'New Year Toast'.
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