We invite you to a concert of waltzes… for choir! At its heart are Brahms’s enchanting Liebeslieder Waltzes, a selection of sentimental, but also ironic and energetic, waltzes that Brahms composed in 1868 “to bring joy to people” and which have since become part of the traditional choral repertoire. On this occasion, however, with choreography by Anna Romaní, we will sing and dance them at the same time!

After a meditative interlude featuring Sibelius’s Valse triste for solo piano and ballet, we present Elgar’s From the Bavarian Highlands, a wonderfully fresh collection of dances in 3/4 time, originally written for choir and piano, which the English composer created after a holiday in the Bavarian Alps.

What few people know is that the original version of the most famous waltz of all, Strauss’s The Blue Danube, which Brahms himself greatly admired, was written for choir. It was commissioned by the Vienna Men’s Choral Society just two years before Brahms’s waltzes. Strauss later rewrote it for orchestra, creating the version to which we begin every year dancing in waltz time.

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