The Viennese waltz evolved from folk sources and no one can point with certainty to its date of origin. The year 1825, however, was probably the most significant in waltz history. Johann Strauss, the elder, formed his first dance band in a Viennese garden that year, and the lilting strains then began their globe-girdling journey to reach their peak later in the creations of Johann Strauss II, a more than worthy heir to his famous father. While the name of the Strausses will be forever linked with the waltz, father and son excelled in other types of music as well – a fact that is clearly proven on this second SESAC album by The Mozarteum Orchestra. There is maximum variety here, within the spellbinding Viennese spirit, and the musicians, who learned their Strauss in the cradle, perform with unparalleled conviction and enthusiasm. Both sides open with selections from famous operettas. Die Fledermaus: Overture pops off like a cork from the champagne bottle, in fitting introduction to the inspired merriment that is unique in the annals of the musical theatre. The Treasure Waltz is really a potpourri from the Strauss operetta ‘The Gypsy Baron,’ one enchanting tune heaped upon another in a startling display of musical richness and invention. In the younger Strauss’s catalog of nearly five hundred compositions, the concert waltzes Wine, Women And Song and Citronen Waltz bear numbers 333 and 364 respectively. The latter title was inspired by the Goethe line “Where The Lemon Buds Bloom,” the former, a musical embodiment of what once primarily occupied the gay minds of Vienna, has since become a much-quoted phrase in all languages. Both recorded sides close with a bang. Tritsch-Tratsch is one of the best of the many Strauss polkas while Radetzky March is one of the elder Strauss’s successes. It was written in the year of 1848 when most of Europe was in flames, and named after a famous field marshal. Rousing it is, stirring it is, but don’t you gain the impression that the regiment marching to its energetic strain is ready to spring into waltz time any minute?