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The Blue Danube

Johann Strauss II (1825–1899) · sheet music

  • Time 3/4
  • Levels 2–9
  • Passages 16

Your turn · both hands

 

 

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Johann Strauss II, Austrian romantic (1825–1899). The reading release has 16 passages from this piece at levels 2–9; the reader above opens on the easiest, bars 1–4 for the right hand alone.

Practice the hard bars →

The hardest stretch is bars 1–8 at level 9.

Your practice path

Learn it the way teachers do: each hand on its own, then together, then the hard bars. Each step is a real graded passage of The Blue Danube.

  1. Right hand alone · bars 1–4 level 2
  2. Hands together · bars 25–32 level 5
  3. The hardest bars · bars 1–8 level 9

How to play The Blue Danube

  1. Feel one beat per bar rather than three, at a gentle swaying tempo; the waltz should float, not march, with the first beat of each bar carrying the weight.
  2. The left hand must jump from a low bass note up to the chord on beats two and three; keep your hand light and look ahead to the next bass note while the chords are still sounding.
  3. The rising opening tune lands on a long held note that is answered by short, crisp chords; count through the held note fully so the answering chords come in on time.
  4. Practice the left hand alone as blocked chords first, then add the jumps; with the melody, go slowly enough that the bass never arrives late.

Structure

The original opens with a quiet introduction in A major, with the famous rising figure emerging out of shimmering strings. Then come five separate waltzes, each made of two contrasting strains and many in their own keys, starting with the best-known tune in D major. A coda recalls earlier waltzes before the brisk final bars, and the whole piece runs about ten minutes.

About The Blue Danube

Johann Strauss II wrote The Blue Danube in 1867, first as a choral waltz for a Vienna men's choir, and soon after reworked it as the purely orchestral piece known today. It became the signature of the Viennese waltz, is a fixture of Vienna's New Year's Concert, and reached a new audience through Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Why the first passage is level 2

That passage is level 2 rather than 1 because it leaps a major third, it is in 3/4, not 4/4.

The Blue Danube opens with a rising broken tonic chord in waltz time, so the first reading skill is recognising a chord shape spread across the staff. The waltz left hand follows the usual bass-chord-chord pattern of three beats. Once you have the pattern, your eyes are free for the melody's long held notes and leaps.

Questions about The Blue Danube

How hard is The Blue Danube to play?
Its passages grade from level 2 to level 9 on Real Sight Reader's ten-level reading scale, so the full piece is intermediate to advanced reading. The hardest stretch is bars 1–8 at level 9.
Is there an easy part of The Blue Danube for beginners?
Yes. Start with bars 1–4 for the right hand alone, the level-2 passage in the reader at the top of this page; it is level 2 because it leaps a major third and it is in 3/4, not 4/4.
What key and time signature is The Blue Danube in?
The engraving on this page is in 3/4 time.
Who composed The Blue Danube?
Johann Strauss II, Austrian romantic (1825–1899). Johann Strauss II wrote The Blue Danube in 1867, first as a choral waltz for a Vienna men's choir, and soon after reworked it as the purely orchestral piece known today.
Can I practice The Blue Danube online for free?
Yes. The reader on this page plays any of the 16 graded passages from The Blue Danube in your browser, with an on-screen keyboard or a MIDI keyboard, and marks every note as you play. No signup.

Every passage, easiest first

The reading release grades 16 distinct passages of this piece. Open any of them in the reader:

Level 2
bars 1–4 right hand
Level 5
bars 25–32 both hands
Level 6
bars 1–4 both hands · bars 1–8 both hands · bars 5–8 both hands · bars 9–12 both hands · bars 9–16 both hands · bars 13–16 both hands · bars 17–20 both hands
Level 8
bars 1–4 both hands · bars 13–16 both hands
Level 9
bars 1–8 both hands · bars 5–8 both hands · bars 9–12 both hands · bars 9–16 both hands · bars 21–24 both hands

More pieces to sight-read

Score: public-domain engraving from the corpus (pdmx), graded by the piano-reading-v2-20261001-mutopia-ly reading release.

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