Tales from the Vienna Woods Tales from the Vienna Woods "Tales from the Vienna Woods" (, occasionally ) is a waltz by Johann Strauss II. Composed in 1868, , Op. 325, was one of six Viennese waltzes by Johann Strauss II which featured a virtuoso part for zither. The title of Strauss' dance recalls the folk music of the inhabitants of the Vienna Woods. The waltz's introduction is one of the longest he ever wrote for a waltz, 119 bars in the musical score. It starts in C major, intertwining with F major before gaining ascendancy in volume and mood, finishing with a long pause.
Tales from the Vienna Woods (play) unemployment and the Great Depression, the play is a key work of modern drama, described by Erich Kästner as "a Viennese folk play accompanied by Viennese folk songs". It is a bitter satire about the mendacity and brutality of the petite-bourgeoisie, named ironically after the Vienna Woods near the Austrian capital that are so idealised in the waltz. In the play, Viennese "Gemütlichkeit" or "coziness" becomes a hollow phrase; the tragic, brutal story of the sweet girl Marianne and the deeply conventional butcher Oskar reflects the hardships and anxieties of the late 1920s during the global economic crisis. The play