IT was on this date 150 years ago that the world’s most famous waltz tune was played for the very first time.

The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II (pictured right), also known as Strauss the Younger, was first played at a Carnival Evening Of Songs given by the Wiener Männergesangsverein, the Vienna Men’s Choral Society, in the Dianabad Hall in Vienna on February 15, 1867.

It was not a roaring success.

WHY NOT?

IT may seem incredible to everyone who has ever danced, skated, romanced to or just hummed that unmistakable waltz sound, but The Blue Danube was originally written as a song.

An Der Schönen Blauen Donau, which translates from the German as By The Beautiful Blue Danube, was written by Strauss for the tenor and bass sections of the Choral Society, with the words added by the Society’s resident poet, Joseph Weyl.

Austria had just lost the Seven Weeks War with Prussia, suffering 70,000 casualties in that brief time, so Weyl’s original lyrics were an occasionally satirical commentary on the times, translated here by Leigh Bailey: Even the political, critical gentlemen Like to turn wisely in a circle, Even if they seem to be moving nimbly They never actually leave the one spot.

And just as they dance the waltz, so they usually make a mess Of the ideas in their brains – despite their efforts, However exactly they write down everything down, Unfortunately they keep losing the beat.

BUT WEREN’T THOSE WORDS DROPPED?

INDEED. Franz von Gernerth later wrote the “official” words, which begin: Danube so blue, so bright and blue, through vale and field you flow so calm, our Vienna greets you, your silver stream through all the lands you merry the heart with your beautiful shores.

LET’S STICK TO THE TUNE ...

AFTER that first performance, Strauss is supposed to have said: “The devil take the waltz, my only regret is for the coda — I wish that had been a success.”

A month later, the Strauss family orchestra performed the purely orchestral version, and by the time they went to the Paris World’s Fair of 1867, Strauss had crafted the 10-minute version – seven minutes of the main theme and three minutes of the coda – that we all know and love.

It was a huge success in Paris, and with 42 countries attending the fair and 15 million visitors between April and November, news of The Blue Danube spread far and wide and very quickly – it was first performed in the US in July that year and was quickly taken up by the promenade concert parties of London.

Within two years of it being written, the sheet music for The Blue Danube had sold more than a million copies.

DID STRAUSS RETIRE ON THE PROCEEDS?

FAR from it. As the son of a famous composer, Johann the Elder, who effectively devised the Viennese waltz and composed the Radetzky March, Johann the Younger might have been expected to study music from childhood, but the elder Strauss wanted his sons to be in any other field than music and young Johann was beaten when he was caught playing musical instruments. When his mother and father divorced, Johann the Younger was able to study properly and was soon producing remarkable and popular waltzes, so much so that he and his father were seen as rivals in Vienna, both with their own orchestras.

When Johann senior died of scarlet fever at the age of 45 in 1849, Johann the Younger merged the two orchestras and his career quickly developed into a life of touring and composing.

Though Strauss could have composed any form of orchestral music, he largely stuck to his waltzes, polkas, operettas and quadrilles and became known as the Waltz King.

The year after The Blue Danube was first performed, Strauss composed the innovative Tales From The Vienna Woods, which brought him not only massive popularity in his home city but also acclaim from his fellow composers – Johannes Brahms was a huge admirer and they became close friends.

Strauss also set a world record in 1872. Invited to the US, he conducted the so-called “monster concerts” in Boston, a sort of forerunner of the Boston Pops.

For one performance of The Blue Danube, he conducted 2,000 musicians and a choir of 20,000 guided by 100 assistant conductors. Strauss thought it was “an appalling row, such as I shall never forget”.

Needless to say the 100,000- strong audience loved it.

Two years later he composed his most famous operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat), having had a hit with Der Karnival In Rom (The Carnival In Rome) the previous year.

Strauss went on composing despite constant ill health and the stress of his brother Josef’s death at the age of 43, his first wife’s death and his second wife’s adultery.

He found happiness with his third wife, Adele, and was acclaimed massively in Vienna in 1894 when the entire city celebrated 50 years of his musical career.

Strauss died in Vienna in 1899 at the age of 73. He took a big secret to his grave – very few people knew he was a rotten dancer.

SO HOW COME WE ALL KNOW THE BLUE DANUBE?

THE waltz has been a big part of popular culture practically since it was written.

It has featured in dozens of adverts and films, ranging from Bugs Bunny’s Corny Concerto to Titanic, but the most famous usage is in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey, where the waltz accompanies the legendary sequence featuring the revolving space station.

A British film of 1932 was called The Blue Danube. It was panned by the critics except for one scene – when Alfred Rode and his Royal Tzigany Band play The Blue Danube.

Spongebob Square Pants also featured the tune in 1999, and it is a highlight of the concerts of Andre Rieu and his orchestra, which the conductor insisting that the audience can get up and dance.

At the age of 150, the greatest waltz still conquers all.