Waltz

The waltz (from German: "Walzer") is a smooth, progressive ballroom and folk dance, normally in  triple  time, performed primarily in closed position.

Introduction and acceptance

There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance—a waltz—from the 16th century, including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim. The French philosopher Montaigne wrote of a dance he saw in 1580 in Augsburg, where the dancers held each other so closely that their faces touched. Kunz Haas (of approximately the same period) wrote, "Now they are dancing the godless Weller or Spinner." "The vigorous peasant dancer, following an instinctive knowledge of the weight of fall, utilizes his surplus energy to press all his strength into the proper beat of the measure, thus intensifying his personal enjoyment in dancing".

The peasants of Bavaria, Tyrol, and Styria began dancing a dance called Walzer, a dance for couples, around 1750. The Ländler, also known as the Schleifer, a country dance in 3
4 time, was popular in Bohemia, Austria, and Bavaria, and spread from the countryside to the suburbs of the city. While the eighteenth century upper classes continued to dance the minuet, bored noblemen slipped away to the balls of their servants.

Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II (October 25, 1825 – June 3, 1899), also known as Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, the Son (German: Sohn), Johann Baptist Strauss, was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely then responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century.

Strauss had two younger brothers, Josef and Eduard Strauss, who became composers of light music as well, although they were never as well known as their elder brother. Some of Johann Strauss' most famous works include "The Blue Danube", "Kaiser-Walzer", "Tales from the Vienna Woods", and the "Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka". Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the best known.

Early life

Strauss was born in St Ulrich near Vienna (now a part of Neubau), Austria, on October 25, 1825, to the composer Johann Strauss I. His paternal great-grandfather was a Hungarian Jew – a fact which the Nazis, who lionised Strauss's music as "so German", later tried to conceal. His father did not want him to become a musician but rather a banker. Nevertheless, Strauss Junior studied the violin secretly as a child with the first violinist of his father's orchestra, Franz Amon. When his father discovered his son secretly practising on a violin one day, he gave him a severe whipping, saying that he was going to beat the music out of the boy. It seems that rather than trying to avoid a Strauss rivalry, the elder Strauss only wanted his son to escape the rigours of a musician's life. It was only when the father abandoned his family for a mistress, Emilie Trampusch, that the son was able to concentrate fully on a career as a composer with the support of his mother.

The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker (Russian: Щелкунчик, Балет-феерия / Shchelkunchik, Balet-feyeriya; French: Casse-Noisette, ballet-féerie) is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (op. 71). The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on Sunday, December 18, 1892, on a double-bill with Tchaikovsky's opera Iolanta.

Although the original production was not a success, the 20-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. However, the complete Nutcracker has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s, and is now performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas season, especially in North America. Major American ballet companies generate around 40 percent of their annual ticket revenues from performances of The Nutcracker.

Tchaikovsky's score has become one of his most famous compositions, in particular the pieces featured in the suite. Among other things, the score is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic ballad The Voyevoda.

Spring Waltz

Spring Waltz (Hangul: 봄의 왈츠; RR: Bom-ui Wal-cheu) is a 2006 South Korean television series starring Seo Do-young, Han Hyo-joo, Daniel Henney, and Lee So-yeon. It aired on KBS2 from March 6 to May 16, 2006 on Mondays and Tuesdays at 21:55 for 20 episodes.

It is the fourth and final installment of director Yoon Seok-ho's season-themed Endless Love series, following Autumn in My Heart, Winter Sonata and Summer Scent.

Synopsis

Seo Eun-young lives a happy life with her single mother on a beautiful island outside of Seoul. One day, the family receives a visit from Lee Jung-tae and his son Soo-ho, who plan to settle down on the island. When Jung-tae learns from his son about the money Eun-young's mother is saving for a special surgery, as Eun-young is sick, he steals it and runs away. In disbelief and despair, Eun-young's mother leaves for Seoul in hopes of tracking down Jung-tae, but she is hit by a car and killed. Eun-young is hospitalized; at the hospital, Soo-ho meets a woman, Hyun Ji-sook, who mistakes him for her late son. The woman's husband asks Soo-ho if he would consider pretending to be his son Jae-ha until his wife recovers in exchange for the money to save Eun-young's life. Soo-ho agrees and, while he leaves South Korea with the couple as Yoon Jae-ha, Eun-young is operated and adopted by her aunt, changing her name to Park Eun-young.

Classical music

Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western music, including both liturgical (religious) and secular music. While a similar term is also used to refer to the period from 1750-1820 (the Classical period), this article is about the broad span of time from roughly the 11th century to the present day, which includes the Classical period and various other periods. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period. The major time divisions of classical music are as follows: the early music period, which includes the Medieval (500–1400) and the Renaissance (1400–1600) eras; the Common practice period, which includes the Baroque (1600–1750), Classical (1750–1820), and Romantic eras (1804–1910); and the 20th century (1901–2000) which includes the modern (1890–1930) that overlaps from the late 19th-century, the high modern (mid 20th-century), and contemporary or postmodern (1975–2015) eras.