Playing Viennese waltzes on or around New Year’s Eve is a curious custom — the music was not written with that event in mind — but has become a reliable seller that most orchestras embrace.

For most people, the mere mention of a Viennese operetta conjures up a waltz of post-Johann Strauss composers—Franz Lehar (The Merry Widow), Oskar Straus (The Chocolate Soldier), Emmerich ...

“Surely, this treatment is authentic Viennese, stemming from the 19th century. You wouldn’t dream of doing it in a waltz-tempo minuet of the 18th century or in a 19th-century Tchaikovsky waltz.

For 2,000 years, Jewish music has been a hybrid compounded of elements picked up from our neighbors. ... Chasidic niggunim drew on Viennese waltz music and Eastern European military marches.