Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 09/25/2007, uploaded on 01/22/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

While working on Der Freischütz in 1819, Carl Marie von Weber composed Invitation to the Dance (Aufforderung zum Tanz) for his wife Caroline. In essence, a rondo for piano, Invitation to the Dance was in fact a waltz for the concert stage, predating the popularization of the dance by Johann Strauss I. Even more, it is also an early programmatic piece. Its simple tale is that of a young man asking a girl to dance at a ball. Together, they dance through several waltzes, and then politely bid each other adieu at the end. Weber begins the piece with a slow introduction in which the gentleman invites the young lady to dance. Anticipation builds as they wait for the dance to begin, and the introduction eventually comes to a close on a dominant seventh chord. In a brisk Allegro vivace, the main waltz tune then appears, but gives way to sweeping scales and various other melodies. The theme returns in full at the close of the piece and builds to an exciting cadence. Audiences here are often fooled into thinking the piece is over, but after a pause, Weber reintroduces a portion of the introduction as the two dancers part ways.

 In 1841, Berlioz, who was a great admirer of Weber’s music, was asked to contribute a ballet sequence, as was the custom in France at the time, to be performed during the second act of a production of Der Freischütz. Insisting that all the music in the production be by Weber, Berlioz orchestrated Invitation to the Dance. Following the production on June 7 of that year, Berlioz’s orchestration, known as L'Invitation à la valse (Invitation to the Waltz) took on a life all its own, and even surpassing in some instances the original piano piece—Berlioz’s orchestration was heard in the United States before Weber’s original composition for piano. Furthermore, it was later used in Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet Spectre de la Rose in 1911, based on a poem by Théophile Gautier.      Joseph DuBose

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Invitation to the Dance         Carl Maria von Weber (arr. Carl Tausig)

Weber's ever-youthful Invitation to the Dance is history's first ballroom waltz.  This spectacular concert version by Carl Tausig is a great example of the transformation of "Classical" pianism into a more "modernized" style.

Tausig (1841-1871), a short-lived favorite pupil of Liszt, was by all accounts one of the most perfect and highly polished pianists of his time.  At his death, von Bulow eulogized: "Here is the whole history of piano playing from the beginning to this day."      Ren Zhang

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.