Steven Wagner - Stevan Vagner, Podrum COLLEGIUM MELODIUM, World music museum in BELGRADE, Uncle ACA / 90 years old / with Friends and Fabulous IRIS, present "Waves of the Danube" first published in Bucharest in 1880. It was dedicated to Emma Gebauer, the wife of music publisher Constantin Gebauer. Composer Émile Waldteufel made an orchestration of the song in 1886, which was performed for the first time at the 1889 Paris Exposition, and took the audience by storm. It won the march prize to mark the exhibition out of 116 entries.
Ivanovici's "Danube Waves" was published in the United States in 1896 and republished in 1903 by the Theodore Lohr Company in an arrangement for piano by Simon Adler. The published version was called "Waves of the Danube." The composition is also known as "Danube Waves Waltz." "Waves of the Danube" became known in the United States only half a century later. Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin published it in 1946 under the name of "The Anniversary Song" ("Oh, how we danced on the night we were wed") and as their own composition. The 1946 sheet music of the song credits the composers as Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin with music by Iosif Ivanovici. Jolson and Chaplin wrote the lyrics while Chaplin adapted Ivanovici's music.
Al Jolson released "The Anniversary Song" on Decca as catalog number 23714. It first reached the Billboard charts on February 7, 1947 and lasted 14 weeks on the chart, peaking at #2. Dinah Shore released a version of the song on , it first reached the Billboard charts on February 28, 1947 and lasted eight weeks on the chart.
