The Great Waltz, concert and floral exhibition

View of the stage during The Great Waltz, at the UFM

Photo by Gustavo Castillo

Organización para Las Artes from Universidad Francisco Marroquín celebrated another concert dedicated to the public of all the ages titled The Great Waltz.  It was performed at the Juan Bautista Gutiérrez Auditorium of this house of studies.

«As an enriching activity of great visual beauty, the four floral clubs of Guatemala, Club Jardín de Guatemala, Club de Jardinería Arte en Flor, Floralí and Círculo Floral, mounted an allusive floral exhibition to the waltzes Blue Danube, Voices of Spring, The Emperor and Noche de Luna entre Ruinas at the lobby of the Auditorium», explained Geraldina Baca-Spross, president of the Organization.

«No musical phrase evokes so many images in people of diverse ages as the waltz.  Played by great and small orchestras during great celebrations of the nobility, such as fifteen years and wedding celebrations throughout the world, the waltz is an elegant dance that was danced in the European courts in the 18th Century in its simpler form until the celebrations in palaces and taverns during its apogee in the 19th Century, with the upcoming of the Strauss family, in Austria», added the president of Orpafm. 

«Repudiated as vulgar at the beginning for the proximity of the bodies of the gentleman and the lady, the waltz has come to occupy the most prominent place between all the hall dances and it has no signs of being replaced», she indicated.  

In this presentation, the Orquesta Clásica de Guatemala, under the direction of the Professor Ricardo del Carmen F., interpreted the most well-known waltz in the world, the Blue Danube, as well as others of the Strauss family and other Austrian composers, such as Franz Lehar and Carl Ziehrer whose works are listened in new years concerts in Vienna, played by the mythical Philharmonic Orchestra of Vienna.    

«Is is said that nobody executes a waltz like Viennese do, as well as nobody can execute Broadway musical comedies like New Yorkers.   And it is true, but a waltz does not lose its enchantment although it is executed in other parts of the world», explained Baca-Spross.  

«The waltz has been joined by polkas, cheerful and rapid compositions that are danced more in Europe at the moment, but outside the European continent, they are listened in concert halls and as part of operettas, which are usually accompanied with claps from audience», she added.

In the program we could not miss a waltz from a Guatemalan composer, Mariano Valverde, the nostalgic and beautiful work Noche de Luna entre Ruinas, in an arrangement for great orchestra by Professor Ricardo Del Carmen Asensio.