Johann Strauss II the ‘Waltz King’ was the most famous and enduringly successful of 19th c. light music composers, captivating not only Vienna but the...

Johann Strauss II the ‘Waltz King’ was the most famous and enduringly successful of 19th c. light music composers, captivating not only Vienna but the whole of Europe and America with his tuneful dances and marches. Of these dances none was more of a ‘snapshot’ of contemporary musical life than the quadrille. Its six distinct sections invited the use of musical highlights from the latest theatre hits, and Strauss the Younger was at the forefront of those writing quadrilles using the themes of others, from Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl to Offenbach’s Orpheus, and his own operetta masterpiece Die Fledermaus.