This site is devoted to the more obscure corners of the 19th Century Viennese style dance music repertoire. The Viennese waltz dominated the dance music scene in this period. A huge number of waltzes, polkas, galoppes and quadrilles was written, the vast majority of which have been lost or lie unperformed in museums. Even music by the most popular names writing in the genre has disappeared. The most famous composer in the style is undoubtedly Johann Strauss II. He published nearly 500 dances in his career, a significant proportion of which do not have their original orchestration.

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I wanted to hear more of this music but there is insufficient demand to justify the cost of having a professional orchestra record it. Fortunately, with the advent of convincing sampled electronic orchestras it is possible to produce quite decent performances with nowhere near that level of expense. All you have to do is learn how to write scores, master a score writing program, dig up some original manuscripts and piano scores, learn how to orchestrate, study the original composers' techniques for orchestration and decide you can make your own performances in a satisfactory manner. So that is what I did.

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All of the music on this site is my transcription or arrangement from contemporary sources ... except that I made up myself.