‘Waltz Into Space’: Vienna’s symphony throws Strauss to house to appropriate NASA’s cosmic error | Culture | EUROtoday

Until now the pace file of The Blue Danube He was held by director Eugene Ormandy together with his accelerated 1960 recording on the head of the Philadelphia Orchestra. That yr, Herbert von Karajan and the Berliners philharmonics printed their very own model, nearly two minutes longer, of Johann Strauss son’s waltz, which is the one which sounds within the well-known scene of the transforder of 2001: an odyssey of house. Kubrick managed to make his movie arrive on the film theaters a yr earlier than Neil Armstrong put a foot on the moon, which helped the ungrateful “Opus π (314)” by Johann Júnior was perpetually related to intergalactic adventures.

Therefore, nobody understood that NASA’s Committee of Experts, led by Carl Sagan, didn’t embrace The Blue Danube Among the 27 musical items of Golden Records of the Voyager 1, the place Bach, Beethoven and Stravinski did traveled after the take -off of the probe in 1977. To appropriate such cosmic error, and as a part of the fakes by the bicentennial of Johann Son, on May 31 the Vienna symphony will play the waltz within the utilized arts museum of the Austrian capital, from the place the sign of the live performance will likely be despatched Waltz into Space by electromagnetic wave to the precise level during which the Voyager, That is, about 25,000 million kilometers from the earth.

For such a factor to be potential, The Blue Danube He will journey on the pace of sunshine going by means of Spain first. The interpretation of the musicians will likely be coded in actual time and despatched to the house from the Cebreros station, in Ávila. “Once the audio is converted to the digital archive, we will use a carrier wave to transmit it to the Voyager”, Explains Jorge Fauste, deputy director of this middle of the Strack Network of the European Space Agency.“ The signal will take just over a second to reach the moon, in four minutes it will reach Mars and, after 17 hours, it will exceed the Heliopause ”, which is how the border is thought the place the affect of the photo voltaic wind ends.

The most vertiginous Strauss waltz in historical past may even be the one which delay the second of applause: it is going to take 23 hours to get to the probe, subsequent to the remainder of the masterpieces that NASA chosen as a letter of presentation of humanity in case some type of clever life got here to listen to the copper vinyl bathed in gold. “Our DSA 2 antenna, designed for Missions to deep space, offers us an accuracy of a ten -eglifice for a mole of 640 kilograms such as the Voyager”, Says Fauste.“ However, technology has evolved so much since its launch that is not prepared to receive the signal. It will be a symbolic act, loaded with beauty. ”

Everything in The Blue Danube It is: beginning with the colour of the river (quite greenish brown) and following the liturgical ritual of the New Year’s live performance that hundreds of thousands of spectators observe. The most delivered to the trigger have been in a position to sponsor, without spending a dime, one of many 13,743 notes of the rating earlier than their house crossing. The bid, during which 858 Spanish melómanos participated, closed a number of weeks in the past. “My note is the 8,810,” says Eduard Strauss, Johann son’s nice -granddaughter. “But my favorite passage belongs to the original version of the waltz, in which a male choir sarcastically calls the Viennese to be happy after the incidents of 1867.”

At 70, this retired and descendant choose of the highly effective dynasty of composers presides over the Viennese Institute of Strauss investigation, which is devoted to the research and conservation of the virtually unabordable catalog of his household, in whose archives, he warns, “there are still many works of great value to discover.” It additionally responds, by electronic mail, to any questions, as a pilgrim which will appear, concerning the lifetime of their ancestors. “It is a lie that Johann Son did not know how to dance!” “What happened is that he was always sitting, composing or on the podium, directing his orchestra.” It was not a matter of fashion, as soon as once more, however of time.

There lies the true problem of a repertoire, that of the Viennese waltz, as fascinating as demanding, with whom they dare to execute it from the lectern. “Let’s say there is no correct way to address it,” resolves the Czech Master Pet Papelka, one other of the crew members of Waltz into Space and answerable for main the Vienna Symphony throughout Saturday’s live performance, which will likely be screened on a number of screens around the globe: from the New York Bryant Park to the Cebreros Station of the Sierra Abulense. “The magic of The Blue Danube It is not expressed through perfection, but obeys a sum of subtle inaccuracies. ”

Popelka refers to what’s often called musical jargon drag: A delicate rhythmic drag that causes within the listener a uncommon sensation of balancing, levitation and even ungravation. “The Blue Danube It forces you to take off your feet from the ground, ”confirms the head of the Vienna Symphony, which will be on tour of Spain (Valencia, Barcelona, ​​Madrid and Zaragoza) from June 3 to 6.“ But, for many galaxies that it can conquer, Strauss’s music was designed to be enjoyed here and now. ”In 1977, after the Voyager 1 depart from Cabo Cañaveral, premiered in theaters Encounters in the Third Phase. Five notes were then enough to establish communication with aliens. “Here now we have greater than 13,000,” celebrates Popelka. “Imagine.”