HIS INVITATION TO WALTZ

Radio Record, 29 July 1938, Page 21

HIS INVITATION TO WALTZ

Cl pi COMPOSER RAVEL PICTURED BALLROOM OF © DANCING COUPLES

JOHANN STRAUSS was a towering figure. For half a century he dominated the dancerooms of the world, and for longer than that he will continue to influence the rhythm of the dance and obsess the minds of its craftsmen. Viennese music to this day means the music of the waltz, and no higher praise can be given to a certain type of music than to say it is in spirit truly Viennese. Brahms acknow- ( ‘cdged Johann’s genius, Richard Strauss emulated it in "The Rose Cavalier," a whole school of composition has been built upon its idiom. and the greatest have been glad to borrow from. it. Ravels great work, "Lu Vaise" ‘Poem Choreographique) is admitted ly an essay in the style and manner of the Viennese waltz, and he has issued instructions to the players that

it is in that spiriv he wishes i Ye be rendered. The composer has imagined and pictured a vast ballroom, full of waltzing couples, growing gayer and brighter as the music proceeds until the fully-lighted scene ywesembles @ ball at the Imperial Court of Vienna in the great days when Strauss was "king. 9 Ravel describes his work as w "Choreographic Poem for Orchestra." Listeners to 4YA will have an opportunity of hearing it played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under Serge Koussevitzky, on Thursday, August 4.