Hyperion Records

The Valse Romantique was written in October 1925 for Emil Hertzka as a contribution to the celebrations of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Universal Edition in Vienna (the piece was lost from view and rediscovered only four decades later). Its satirical tone reveals the influence of Ravel’s La valse, composed four years earlier, and suggests that the title is ironic—as, indeed, more obliquely, was Ravel’s.

from notes by Martin Anderson © 2003