Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Autograph manuscript, part of the waltz-sequence 'Einleitung und Walzer aus "Der Rosenkavalier"', op.59, [1944]
The famous waltz from Der Rosenkavalier.

10 bars for full orchestra on 25 staves, marked 'lebhafter' and 'sehr schnell', one page, 334 x 278mm, on 30-stave paper, inscribed in autograph at foot 'Einlage zur Partitur von Einleitung und Walzer aus Rosencavalier, Seite 36 5^ter Akt drittes Viertel unter "Sehr schnell"' [Insert to the score of the Introduction and Waltz from Rosenkavalier, page 36, Act 5, 3rd quarter under 'very fast'].

Provenance:
(1) Sotheby's, 28 November 2017, lot 69.

(2) Schøyen Collection, MS 5584.

Ironically this much-loved waltz theme from Rosenkavalier is associated with its most odious character, the buffoonish Baron Ochs von Lerchenau. The fact that a waltz (a dance which became fashionable in Vienna only in the 1780s) was anachronistic in an opera set in the 1740s aroused some criticism but did nothing to diminish the immense popularity of the work, and of this, its most famous melody.