"The Beautiful Blue Danube" now makes the stars waltz
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Members of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra perform the Blue Danube Waltz, written by renowned Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, in Vienna, Austria, on May 31, 2025. JOE KLAMAR / AFP
In this bicentennial year of the birth of Johann Strauss Jr., his most famous waltz was launched into space from the Austrian capital on the evening of May 31. Art and science joyfully intertwine to a triple-time rhythm.
It was to correct what it considers a culpable oversight that the city of Vienna took the initiative of sending its most famous waltz into space. Last March, Norbert Kettner, director of the Austrian capital's Tourist Office, declared: " Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey made The Blue Danube a true space anthem. That the world's most famous waltz was not added to the golden record aboard the Voyager space probe in 1977 is a strange mistake that we wish to correct ."
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