CD/DVD André Rieu: Moonlight Serenade

André Rieu: Moonlight Serenade version on CD/DVD in Standard edition. This particular edition was published in Europe in publishing company Universal Music Group on 24. December 2021.

André Rieu - the uncrowned king of the world's waltzes, who has sold more than 100 million albums in the last 20 years, releases a new album enriched with a concert DVD from Australia. The album has already been released in the UK and has been nominated for Album of the Year at the Classic Brit Awards.Born in Maastricht, Netherlands, violinist, composer, arranger and conductor André Leon Marie Nicolas Rieu earned the nickname King of the Waltzes in the early 1990s when he began to specialise in so-called light classical music, particularly the Viennese salon music of yesteryear. And he has had unexpected success with it literally all over the world. Just to illustrate the point: last year's Forever Vienna album reached number two on the UK best-seller chart and number four in the Republic of Ireland, and in the same year his albums scored high on the Australian chart (Masterpieces at number 9). In 2008, he was number one in the UK with Waltzing Matilda and number two in the UK with The 100 Most Beautiful Melodies.André Rieu comes from a large family of musicians. His father was conductor of the Maastricht Symphony Orchestra and also directed the Leipzig Opera Orchestra, and virtually all of André's siblings are involved in music. André Rieu assembled his first salon ensemble in 1982 and, with a few personnel changes, it lasted until 1987. The predominantly violin-based line-up was dominated by solo violin, cello, double bass and piano, with trumpet and chimes appearing here and there to spice up the sound. It was also at this time that Rieu made his first gramophone recordings. However, André Rieu became world-famous at the head of his large orchestra, to which he gave the "historic" name of the Johann Strauss Orchestra. The orchestra was founded in 1987 and the repertoire was actually predetermined - it consisted of Johann Strauss compositions supplemented by compositions by several other composers, mostly lighter classics and operettas. The orchestra originally had twelve musicians, but it eventually grew to a cast of forty or fifty. Not long after its formation, the Rieo Orchestra embarked on its first extensive European concert tour, which sparked a previously unsuspected interest in waltzes that many believed would be left in the dust forever. Europe began to dance the waltz once again to the tune of Rieu's violin (an instrument made by Antonio Stadivari in 1667 and costing his brother two million euros) and his baton. This wave soon spread to the United States and Japan, and more recently to Australia. Rieu played there for the first time with his orchestra in September 2007 and by the end of the following year a record 38,000 people had attended his concert in Melbourne! And because Rieu is no slouch, his orchestra's performance, entitled Romantic Viennese Night, was complemented on stage by a huge replica of Vienna's Schönbrunn Palace, two ice-skating rinks full of skaters, plus two fountains and a huge dance floor.

Album spans genres Classical and Romantic. CD + DVD.