Sir, - In her interesting article in your edition of August 12th, Marese Murphy states that the younger Johann Strauss brought his band to Dublin in 1838. In fact, Strauss junior (who was then approaching his 13th birthday!) never visited Ireland. It was his father, Johann Strauss Senior, composer of the ever popular "Radetzky" March, who led the Strauss Orchestra in Dublin in August 1838, with performances in the Theatre Royal and the Rotunda.
Elsewhere, the article's highlighted statement could leave the erroneous impression that the first performance of Strauss junior's "Blue Danube" Waltz was in 1872, in Boston. This most celebrated of all waltzes was, of course, first heard publicly five years earlier, in choral form, on February 15th, 1867, and in its orchestral version, less than a month later, in Vienna. - Yours, etc.,
John Swift, Clonard Grove, Dundrum, Dublin 16.