The Last Waltz: The Strauss Dynasty and Vienna

The Last Waltz tells the intriguing story of two generations of the Viennese family that produced some of the best known and best loved music of the 19th century. From nowhere they produced two Waltz kings, a father and three sons, and literally hundreds of instantly recognizable and enduring melodies, such as The Blue Danube Waltz, Tales from the Vienna Woods, Voices of Spring, and The Radetzky March. Yet this was also a family riven with tension, feuds, and jealousy, and those involved lived in an Austria that witnessed seismic upheavals. An Emperor ill-equipped for leadership struggled to maintain the exalted place of the Austro-Hungarian empire on the European stage, while at the personal level experiencing more tragedy than any man should have to bear: his brother executed, his wife the Empress murdered, and his son and heir lost in a double suicide. Through the personal and political chaos, the Strauss family continued to compose waltzes to which the Viennese—anxious to forget their troubles—danced and drank champagne, as their country hurtled toward World War I, and oblivion.