Waves of the Danube and Lovely Sara

Iosif Ivanovici, mayor in the Romanian Military, was born in Timișoara in 1845 (or 1846, according to some biographers) and died in Bucharest in 1902. Military band leader in Galați and Bucharest, he was national military bands inspector and, of course, the composer of many waltzes, fashionable dances, piano pieces, and songs.

It was during his one of his travels to Lugoj that Ivanovici met little Sara Fried, and it was for the future lovely young lady that he wrote the waltz that made him famous, Waves of the Danube. Indeed, in 1880, the composer presented Fräulein Fried with a thin cardboard sheet, 78/88 mm., marked “Donau Wellen Walzer v. I. Ivanovics” and on which he had engraved the complete score. On the back, decorative capital letters read: “DONAUWELLEN Walzer. Ivanovics gewimdet und geschriben für Fräulein Sara Fried” (Waves of the Danube, waltz. Written by Ivanovici for, and dedicated to, Miss Sara Fried).

The lucky muse and dedicatee, born into an old Jewish family in Lugoj in 1866, married fellow townsman Iosif Ludovic Dreichlinger. Some of their descendants were still living in 1993 in Bucharest (Gheorghe Dreichlinger), Timișoara (chemist Otto Dreichlinger and Dr Gabriel Dreichlinger), and Israel (a great-grandchild). Sara Fried died in 1935 and now rests in the Jewish Cemetery Lugoj.

Tobias Schwager

(Minimum, VII/80, November 1993, Israel)