<i>Hand in Hand</i> ; Strauss’ <i>Kaiser-Walzer</i> as a case study of interdisciplinary collaboration in digital musicology

Abstract Johann Strauss Jr.’s famous Kaiser-Walzer (Emperor Waltz) has provoked frequent study. Questions about its character, in light of the ‘serious’ versus ‘art’ music debate, have persisted over time since its inception in 1889. It still straddles both definitions in scholarship and popular understanding, and is among the most widely recognized works of the Strauss dynasty, frequently performed within the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s Concert (NYC) series. Interpretative choices made by orchestras associated with this music influence the conception of Vienna’s ‘signature sound’, and differentiate Vienna’s orchestras from national and international counterparts. The waltz’s (intentionally) ambiguous naming presents a further mystery, long prompting discussion as to which Emperor was truly intended, Kaiser Franz Joseph I of Austria or the German Kaiser Wilhelm II. We approach these long-standing musicological questions using digital methods within ‘Signature Sound Vienna’, a research project funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF P 34664-G). Our interdisciplinary investigation of the NYC series combines historical and systematic musicology, performance science, music informatics, and Web science. Our data, organized according to FAIR principles as a Linked Data corpus, support machine-readable references underlying our assertions via publishable URIs. This article presents a case study, both of our musicological research (exemplified using the Kaiser-Walzer), and of this novel approach to scholarly publication (using URIs included within the reporting).