My transcription of the manuscript in the Wien Bibliothek. It’s just another late Lanner masterpiece. Unfortunately, that’s the last of my “unknown” Lanner manuscripts so, for the moment, any future Lanner will be either a transcription of something that has already been recorded or something orchestrated by me.

It did set me thinking (diatribe follows!). When did the fashion for starting waltz themes, especially waltz 1A, slowly and then accelerating start? If you listen to virtually any modern recording you’ll very probably hear it. Think of the start of the waltzes in the Blue Danube, for example. Derrrrrr, Derrrrrr, Derrrrrr, dah [pause] dit [pause] dah [pause] dir [pause] dah. Neither the rubato nor the pauses is in the score.

In general, music for dancing is not written as played. It assumes the players are familiar with the style. For example, if you compare any “big band” arrangement score to what actually was played, the rhythms are totally different. If you compare modern recordings of Scott Joplin’s rags to the piano rolls made by Joplin himself the differences are extraordinary, which does beg the question “Why don’t modern pianists listen to Joplin’s recordings?”.

I assume that this is also true of the Viennese waltz. Obviously, we have no recordings of Lanner or his contemporaries but the waltz style has changed significantly over the years. This is illustrated by very early recordings. The recording of the Blue Danube by Drescher and his orchestra of 1901 has very little rubato (although he does hold up the very first bar a bit) and Drescher was playing in the Strauss orchestra in the 1860’s so would have known how Johann played it. It is also very quick as are quite a lot of early recordings.

This waltz in particular has no tempo markings in the waltz sections and no rubato, rits or ralls. It is extremely unlikely that it was played in strict tempo. Waltz 1A, however, starts with a thump and we’re off. It is not possible to start it slowly. A fair number of other Lanner waltzes starts in a similar manner. Others can be started slowly but was that done at the time? If dancers were used to starting up to speed, is it possible that that’s the way waltzes usually started?

I am less familiar with later pieces but it is noticeable that in the 1860’s Johann Strauss could write a novelty waltz called “Accelerations” that starts slowly and speeds up. This would not be much of a novelty if it were common practice.

Later 19th century waltzes by Strauss and others sometimes have a “rit” marking over the first bar of a phrase. It is not in every waltz and certainly not in every phrase.

By the mid 20th century the “traditional” way of starting the waltz has become established and infected the majority of performances, even of early works.

As must be fairly obvious, I am not a musicologist or a musician. I am an engineer by training and I find it really frustrating that composers don’t write exactly what they want. We need a Roger Norrington equivalent.

And don’t get me started on the pre-emptive second beat. Where did that come from ?