It has been recorded by great artists of the past such as Artur Schnabel, Alfred Cortot, Ignaz Friedman and Yvonne Lefébure, through to those of the present day such as Stephen Hough, Jean-François Heisser, Michael Endres, Hamish Milne, and Balázs Szokolay.

[6] It has a slow introduction (Moderato) leading to a fast section (Allegro vivace), then a lilting waltz theme.

He agreed to participate, on condition that the opera be performed complete and unadapted (it had been cut and retitled "Robin des bois" for an Odéon production in the 1820s), and that it contain music only by Weber.

[6][10] He called the ballet L'Invitation à la valse;[11] as a result, the original piano work is sometimes referred to in English as "Invitation to the Waltz", but that is not its correct title.

[2] Despite the popularity of the Berlioz arrangement, in 1873 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky described its use in Der Freischütz as "utterly incongruous", "tasteless" and "silly".

He wrote: Der Freischütz afforded me great pleasure; in many places in the first act my eyes were moist with tears.

The third act was curious because of the French brazenness with which they took the liberty, on the one hand, of inserting Invitation à la valse with the most stupid dances, and, on the other, of cutting out the role of the hermit who appears at the end for the dénouement.

The scenario was based on a poem by Théophile Gautier, which was also the basis of a song that Berlioz had set as part of his cycle Les nuits d'été.

Joseph Lanner quoted Invitation to the Dance in his waltz Aufforderung zum Tänze, Op.

[3][24][25] Film biographies of Carl Maria von Weber have appeared under the titles Aufforderung zum Tanz (1934), and Invitation to the Waltz (1935).

[26] The Gene Kelly all-dance anthology film Invitation to the Dance, released in 1956, took its name from the piece and used it in the opening credits.