Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

We called Happy Hour early today, mainly because (a) we CAN and (b) it's gonna be hot today on The High Plains o' New Mexico, as in the mid-90s, with thunderstorms.  So we decided to get while the gettin' is good.

Yesterday we were in a Baroque mood, today it's all-Strauss, all the time, including this gem:



(Sigh)  Is that not beautiful?  What a venue!

Every time I hear this piece o' music... which I think is among the most beautiful (light) classical music pieces ever penned... I'm reminded of an item on my Punch List that I'll prolly never check off.  We've posted about this before and recently, too.  To wit:

There's this, to begin with:

February 13, 1867: Johann Strauss's Blue Danube waltz premiered in Vienna.

It shouldn't take too much effort to guess what we'll be listening to come Happy Hour.  I've mentioned this to several people over the years: there's just so much excellent classical music out there that it's hard to choose favorites.  That said, I have a very large warm spot in my heart for the Strauss family.  One of my better memories of the way-back was a New Year's concert The Second Mrs. Pennington and I attended when we lived in London.  The London Symphony Orchestra used to do an all-Strauss performance for New Years in times past (they might still do so) and we went.  Wonderful, in a word, and we saw them in their then-new home at the Barbican Center, which has a very nice bar that we patronized at the interval.  I'd still like to be in Vienna for New Years at some point, but my dreams is fading down the railway line.  (That's an obscure reference to an old Stones tune.  Which IS my favorite song of theirs.)  (Yet another parenthetical: you get a LOT of hits if you search for "Blue Danube" by the Vienna Philharmonic.)

A couple o' things I didn't mention in that post, above.  First: TSMP and I were seriously under-dressed for the event... she in a nice dress (but not formal, in any sense o' the word) and me in a sport coat, slacks, white shirt, and a tie (whereas the other male patrons were in tuxes and the like).  The second thing is the fact that one left their drink orders at the bar (while pre-paying) on the way into the concert and when the interval came all ya had to do is walk into the bar and... Walla!... there were your drinks, already poured for you.  That was a nice touch.

I'm wonderin' if the Vienna Philharmonic has the same sorta set-up, but it's sumthin' I'll likely never know.