Julius Bittner

After the Second World War, however, as a typical representative of late Romantic opera in the tradition of Richard Wagner, he was gradually forgotten.

In 1964, the archive containing almost all of his works (autograph sketches, text books, scores and piano reductions) was taken over by the Vienna City Library.

Operas (selection): Julius Bittner also composed two symphonies, two symphonic poems and a work for two pianos and orchestra entitled Österreichische Tanze (Austrian Dances).

He wrote incidental music to plays by Shakespeare, and for popular plays by Johann Nestroy and Ferdinand Raimund, chamber works (including two string quartets and a still unpublished Cello Sonata) many songs, and a Great Mass and Te Deum which was a cornerstone of the Austrian choral tradition until World War II.

He also composed numerous operettas and three ballets, and assisted his friend Erich Wolfgang Korngold in the creation of the most successful of the Johann Strauss pastiches - Walzer aus Wien (premièred in Vienna on 30 October 1930), which became known in English as The Great Waltz.