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Quaxo!

Duets by Rossini

Ha! I was on Virtual Sheet Music, testing my luck to find anything to do with ALW's Cats, and found Rossini's Comic Duet for Two Cats, instead! Now I know where that line in the song comes from!

Does anybody know which song "Waltzes by Strauss" comes from? It'd be fun to know. Very Happy
Bustephen

Good news, Quaxo!. It took me a while, but I think I can answer your question. Supposedly Johann Strauss II, for all his gifts in composing, was notoriously poor with lyrics. One of his most notorious blunders was found in the Lagunen-Walzer (Lagoon Waltz)...

Wikipedia wrote:
The Berlin production incorporated many outrageously silly lyrics during this waltz song where the singer has to sing the embarrassing 'Nacht sind die Katzen ja grau, nachts tönt es zärtlich Miau!' (At night, the cats are grey, at night "meow" they tenderly say!'

The few times the lyrics were actually performed, the audience apparently found it hilarious and meowed along to the music.

A review of a Strauss biography wrote:
Strauss the fountain of melody had little ear for lyrics, and Jacob says that it was largely luck whether or not Strauss had a decent libretto for each operetta. In Nacht in Venedig (Night in Venice), the smooth Lagunenwaltzer (Lagoon Waltz) was cursed with lyrics about meowing cats, which the audience echoed in cat-calls, causing a "theatrical riot".


Sounds plausible enough to me.
Quaxo!

Thank you! Not really necessary to know, but it's really fun! ALW Really knew lots about music to think up those lyrics. I personally had no Idea about those pieces' existence. Maybe I just need to get out more.
Mungojerrie_rt

^It was Elliot, Nunn and Stilgoe who wrote the Prologue. Wink
Quaxo!

oh, Embarassed Embarassed Embarassed I really don't know very much about the writers and whatnot. Thanks for correcting me Smile
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