The DANUBE WAVES - IVANOVICI

Steven Wagner - Stevan Vagner, Podrum COLLEGIUM MELODIUM, World music museum in Belgrade and 80 Years old Uncle ACA, present "Waves of the Danube" (Romanian: Valurile Dunării; Serbian: Дунавски валови/Dunavski valovi ;German: Donauwellen; French: Flots du Danube; Russian: Дунайские Волны), a waltz composed by Iosif Ivanovici (1845–1902) in 1880, and is one of the most famous Romanian tunes in the world. In the United States, it is frequently referred to as "The Anniversary Song", a title given by Al Jolson when he and Saul Chaplin released an adaptation of the song in 1946 "The Anniversary Song" is sometimes confusingly referred to as "The Anniversary Waltz", which is actually the name of a completely unrelated song. As "Waves of the Danube", the song is also confused with the more famous Danube tune "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss II. "Waves of the Danube" was first published in Bucharest, 1880. It was dedicated to Emma Gebauer, the wife of music publisher Constantin Gebauer. Composer Emile Waldteufel made an orchestration of the song in 1886, which was performed for the first time at the 1889 Paris Exposition, and took the audience by storm. It won the march prize to mark the exhibition out of 116 entries
Ivanovici's "Danube Waves" was published in the United States in 1896 and republished in 1903 by the Theodore Lohr Company in an arrangement for piano by Simon Adler. The published version was called "Waves of the Danube." The composition is also known as "Danube Waves Waltz." "Waves of the Danube" became known in the United States only half a century later. Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin published it in 1946 under the name of "The Anniversary Song" ("Oh, how we danced on the night we were wed") and as their own composition. The 1946 sheet music of the song credits the composers as Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin with music by Iosif Ivanovici. Jolson and Chaplin wrote the lyrics while Chaplin adapted Ivanovici's music.