The Waltz KingsJohann Strauss, Father & Son, and Their Romantic Age; by Hans Fatel.

Very moving tale, true story, of a talented music composer who invented the then immediately enormously popular waltz, composed waltzes and polkas and more, but had a troubled life in that he left his family and lived with another woman, far more serious in those days in Europe for someone in middle class; and then the son, even more talented, inherited far more talent and too some of his father's emotional troubles with love life.

The son wrote The Beautiful Blue Danube, which was at first rejected and he threw it out into trash, only his live in lover knew its worth and not only saved it but put in amongst the pieces to be played at a key performance, and he played it in spite of being angry at her for this. The rest - of fame of the piece and immortality of the composer thereby - is history.

Most moving is how his death was conveyed to a gathering by his conductor with a playing of Blue Danube in very slow tempo, and they understood, and left without a word after the performance, silently.