My arrangement of this waltz by Czibulka containing his most famous tune.

I think we’ll just put this one down to experience. I did a polka of his recently which was ok so I thought I’d seek out a waltz. I may have just picked out the wrong one as there are a couple of orchestral waltzes of his on youtube that are quite good. This is not the most inspiring piece of music and it’s not very Viennese, by which I mean all of the tunes are on the beat, the harmonies are uninteresting and there’s no rhythmic interest. It put me in mind of pairs of elderly widows shuffling around a dance floor, complete with potted palms, in about 1940 to the accompaniment of a slightly less elderly piano trio.

I’m probably just out of tune with this kind of music. I belong about 50 years earlier.

There’s an interesting recording of this on youtube by the London Salon Orchestra, which is possibly more the size of orchestra it was written for. They play it very straight and quite quickly … but it still made me think of ladies in lavender. Perhaps more so.

It’s not terrible but it just doesn’t appeal to me. I’ve done better orchestrations too. I’m off back to 1840!