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The Blue Danube is the common English title of An der schönen blauen Donau, Op. 314 (German for "By the Beautiful Blue Danube"), a waltz by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, composed in 1866. Originally performed in 15 February 1867 at a concert of the Wiener Männergesangsverein (Vienna Men's Choral Association), it has been one of the most consistently popular pieces of music in the classical repertoire. Its initial performance was considered only a mild success, however, and Strauss is reputed to have said, "The devil take the waltz, my only regret is for the coda—I wish that had been a success!"
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After the original music was written, the words were added by the Choral Association's poet, Joseph Weyl. Strauss later added more music, and Weyl needed to change some of the words. Strauss adapted it into a purely orchestral version for the 1867 Paris World's Fair, and it became a great success in this form. The instrumental version is by far the most commonly performed today. An alternate text was written by Franz von Gernerth, "Donau so blau" (Danube so blue). "The Blue Danube" premiered in the United States in its instrumental version on 1 July 1867 in New York, and in Great Britain in its choral version on 21 September 1867 in London at the promenade concerts at Covent Garden.
When Strauss's stepdaughter, Alice von Meyszner-Strauss, asked the composer Johannes Brahms to sign her autograph-fan, he wrote down the first bars of The Blue Danube, but adding "Leider nicht von Johannes Brahms" ("Alas! not by Johannes Brahms").
Instrumentation
The Blue Danube is scored for the following orchestra:
Choral version
The Beautiful Blue Danube was first written as a song for a carnival choir (for bass and tenor), with rather satirical lyrics (Austria having just lost the war with Prussia). The original title was also referring to a poem about the Danube in the poet Karl Isidor Beck's hometown, Baja in Hungary, and not in Vienna. Later Franz von Gernerth wrote new, more "official-sounding" lyrics:
In popular culture
The specifically Viennese sentiment associated with Strauss's melody has made it an unofficial Austrian National Anthem.
The piece was prominently used in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. After a leap from humanity's prehistoric past to its spacefaring future, the first two-thirds of The Blue Danube are heard as a space plane approaches and docks with a space station; it concludes while another spacecraft travels from the station to the Moon. The piece is then reprised over the film's closing credits.