In 2012 the Vienna Institute for Strauss Research received a request from Justin Croft, an antiquarian bookseller, for a confidential report on a manuscript. I immediately realised that it was the autograph manuscript of an extract from an unknown waltz by Johann Strauss I on the back of a menu. Our chairman Eduard Strauss and I had to give an assurance to Mr Croft that we would not publish a printed edition of this manuscript. It was eventually put up for auction at Sotheby’s in London (Auction L12406, 28 November 2012, Lot 255). We would be grateful for any information enabling us to find and contact the present owner, in order to request his permission to display a facsimile of the manuscript in the Strauss Exhibition in the House of Strauss in the Casino Zögernitz in Vienna.

Norbert Rubey

English translation: Leigh Bailey