Johann Strauss the younger is a classic of popular music and therefore a must at every Viennese ball. Especially in the anniversary year of his 200th birthday. But the Divertimento Viennese ball orchestra, under the direction of Vinzenz Praxmarer, will be offering not only the greatest hits such as the Blue Danube Waltz but also a special surprise as a ball overture: Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Straussiana” from 1953, a potpourri of rather unknown melodies by the Waltz King, which the composer masterfully condensed into a tribute.

In the 1910s, Korngold was considered the European child prodigy of composition. His flight from the Nazis to America drastically changed his artistic path. As the founder of Hollywood’s symphonic film music, he created the soundtracks for 16 screen works, including Max Reinhardt’s interpretation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Robin Hood” with Clark Gable.

Even though the waltz is now synonymous with ballroom music, it was considered disreputable in the 19th century, despite its popularity, as historian Waltraud Schütz from the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Research on the Habsburg Monarchy and the Balkans has researched: “In particular in the circles of the high nobility, the limits of modesty were much more important than in other circles. It was therefore rather unlikely that a young woman would waltz with a man she didn’t know. Instead, the quadrille was popular, where there was also physical contact, but it was much more controlled. Nevertheless, young noblewomen had fun at balls, as Countess Julie Hoyos wrote to her sister Caroline in 1836: ‘Yesterday I was at the ball all day, which was very nice, and I also had very good conversations. But we danced oh! scandalum until 2 o’clock in the morning!’”

At the Science Ball, the Divertimento Viennese ball orchestra plays reliably until four o’clock in the morning. And before that, of course, the quadrille after the midnight performance.