Loreley-Rhein-Klänge, op. 154

Johann Strauss the elder wrote Loreley-Rhein-Klänge in 1843, taking his subject from the Rhine legend that Brentano and Heine had made current in German poetry. The waltz belongs to the years when Strauss was touring his orchestra across Europe rather than playing only Vienna, and the Rhine reference was aimed at German audiences as much as Viennese ones. It is built as a chain of short waltzes with an extended introduction, the form his son would later expand. Strauss senior wrote some hundred and fifty waltzes; this is among the handful still programmed.