My orchestration of this waltz by August Lanner, first performed on the 20th April 1853 in Schwender’s Établissement.

Its brilliant – the waltz that is, not my orchestration! Apart from being a fun waltz with lots of good tunes it is very interesting technically. The thematic development in Waltz 1 is novel, especially for this period and some of the harmonies and key changes are very advanced. Those in Waltz 3B are particularly interesting, certainly Josef Strauss like. I’ve been trying to think which Josef Strauss waltz has that augmented fourth key change … Transactionen?

He’s sorted out the coda too. In some waltzes he comes a cropper by using interesting keys in the waltz sections which then make life difficult for him in the coda. Despite still using the interesting keys, he’s planned the piece so that the themes he wants in the coda are in the same or related keys.

If I’ve done my sums right he can have been no more than 18 years of age when he wrote this.