The big blue

`It is no small thing to make humanity dance," stated a perceptive commentator many years ago, and with the Strauss Waltz still an on-going industry in Vienna, it was inevitable that the city should mount an elaborate programme of events to mark the centenary of the master's death. Wreaths have been laid at the freshly-gilded memorial statue in the Stadtpark; lengthy speeches have been made, and learned articles published, while the whole of Vienna remains in the grip of the family's music.

There are Strauss concerts indoors and out, some in grand palaces, some in cafes. Forgotten operettas are being dusted off and staged again, and the boisterous Washerwomen's Ball has been revived on a weekly basis for the diversion of visitors and townspeople alike. Tickets include the provision of suitable raiment for the "spivs" who patronised these junketings and for their low-born, slap-and-tickle prey. A comic study from 1898 verifies the behaviour associated with such events.

This is part of the exhaustive Strauss Centenary Exhibition at the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna - presenting an irresistible array of pictures, posters, scores, costumes, and best of all, a brilliant collection of cartoons, which document the entire Strauss family in detail and evoke the era in which they flourished. The early section is devoted, very properly, to Johann Strauss Snr who died 50 years earlier, and with his colleague and rival, Josef Lanner, was the first to make the waltz respectable, thus preparing the ground for his eldest son to become a mega-star of the 19th century.

Like his offspring in years to come, he cultivated other dance forms as well, and one of the most amusing items in the exhibition is a critical illustration of "The Big Gallop" which shows a dense crowd of worthies galumphing in a tight circle around the dance floor, all suddenly put at risk by the collapse of a stout female in the foreground.

But it was as the architect of the sophisticated waltz form that Strauss Snr was most celebrated, and despite growing competition from his son, he retained the title of "Waltz King" until his death.

"What Napoleon's victories were to the French, the Strauss waltzes are to the Viennese," a contemporary remarked, and in fact, it was in 1815, at the Congress of Vienna which saw off Napoleon, that the Viennese Waltz, with its exhilarating giddiness, its rapid revolving and elegant gliding, became the rage of high society. "The Congress," observed the Prince de Ligne wryly, "makes no progress; but it dances."

The fashionable new craze evolved from humble peasant origins in the shape of the German landler which was danced in heavy boots and involved stamping and slapping of bodily parts. Although Mozart's friend, the Irish tenor Michael Kelly, reports that it was already popular in Vienna in 1773, in its early years the waltz provoked violent disapproval - not least from the trenchant English scholar and musician, Dr Charles Burney. Writing in 1805, he described the waltz as "a riotous German dance of modern invention", adding censoriously that "the verb waltzen . . . implies to roll, wallow, welter, tumble down, or roll in the dirt or mire."

Watching the dance performed by "a select group of foreigners", the good doctor concluded piously "how uneasy an English mother would be to see her daughter so familiarly treated, and still more to witness the obliging manner in which the freedom is returned by the females."

So much for Dr Burney's assumptions. By the end of the century the English mother was waltzing with a vengeance, in the company of her daughters and their counterparts all over Europe, including Ireland.

By the time the younger Strauss - affectionately known in Vienna as "Schani" - brought his band to Dublin in 1838, a mere four concerts netted him 6,000 florins, a handsome figure compared with the 600-800 florins he might expect for personal appearances in his native city during the course of year. But these were still early days, and when he arrived in Boston in 1872, no less than 12,000 singers and musicians - some say 20,000 - plus 100 sub-conductors, assembled under his direction for The Blue Danube, a piece originally written for male-voice chorus. "Thank God I managed that," Strauss wrote with relief after the performance. "It was as much as a man could do."

He was born in Vienna in 1825, the first of six children. Nothing if not liberal in his gifts, the elder Strauss went on to father a further brood of seven with the help of a local milliner. However, he continued to keep a close eye on his original family, and despite his own success, firmly discouraged any musical aspirations in his progeny. Finding young Schani practising the violin in front of a mirror, he removed the instrument and went on hoping that the boy would grow up to be a banker. But to no avail. By the age of six, the child had already thought up simple melodies in three-four time, and his inspiration rarely flagged throughout the rest of his life.

Like his father, Strauss was fond of women and managed three marriages in his time, as well as a suspected love-affair with an attractive Russian during his visits to Pavlosk near St Petersburg. Their portraits all hang in the Centenary Exhibition, along with a study of Strauss's mother, expressing the indomitable spirit she needed not only to survive her husband's departure, but also to quash her son's Russian liaison, as it is believed she did. Of more serious interest to musicians are the autograph scores from Austria's National Library, and these demonstrate clearly why Strauss numbered the august figures of Brahms and Bruckner among his friends and admirers.

With the help of his brothers - Josef and, later, Eduard - Johann Strauss founded a family business of international dimensions. It was based first and foremost on the Viennese Waltz, but included many other exotic elements from the mazurkas, polkas and gallops that reflected the influence of the Hapsburg Empire's subject races. They remain as popular today as ever they were, with The Blue Danube inevitably at the top of the league, played always at the end of the famous New Year's concert in Vienna, and followed always by the elder Strauss's Radetzky March. The ball season continues to be the highlight of the year in Vienna, and tickets for the Opernball, which is considered its climax, are zealously sought.

The Strauss Centenary Exhibition at the Historical City Museum, Vienna, continues until September 26th, while a smaller and more intimate theatrical collection is on display at the Lobkowitz Palace until the end of October. The house in the Praterstrasse where Strauss lived intermittently between 1863 and 1874, and where The Blue Danube was written, is a permanent museum, housing the composer's memorabilia