Der Zigeunerbaron (The Gypsy Baron) premiered on 24 October 1885 at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, bringing Strauss the greatest stage triumph of his career. Set in mid-eighteenth-century Hungary and Vienna, the story revolves around Hungarian Gypsies and the relationship between Austria and Hungary, twin poles of a large empire.

For over twenty-five years before writing his first stage work, Strauss had made a good living performing, conducting and publishing his own dance music. Both he and his publisher realized the income potential from the sale of printed dance pieces, and since the premiere of his first operetta, Indigo und die vierzig Räuber (Indigo and the Forty Thieves), Strauss extracted dance numbers from his stage works and published them as individual compositions. Der Zigeunerbaron was no exception, and Strauss authorized the printing of six separate items from the operetta, all published, along with the entire vocal score of the operetta, in Hamburg in 1886.

One of segments Strauss gleaned from Der Zigeunerbaron became the Schatz-Walzer (Treasure Waltz), op. 418, three of the tunes from which appear early in Act II. In the second number of the act, Sándor Barinkay, recently returned after twenty years exile from his homeland in Hungary, Czipra, an old gypsy woman, and Saffi, Czipra's foster-daughter, awake from a night spent in the ruins of an old castle. After Barinkay reiterates his intention to marry Saffi, she tells him and Czipra about a dream in which she learned that somewhere in the castle a great treasure is hidden behind a stone. After a moment of searching, Barinkay finds the gold, after which a waltz tune begins with the text, "Ha, seht, es winkt, es blinkt, es klingt!" (Ah, see, it sparkles, it glitters, it sings!). The iambic meter of the text is perfectly suited to a waltz setting. In a traditional fashion, this melody is paired with another waltz, beginning when Barinkay sings, "Nun will ich des Lebens freuen!" (Now life will please me!). This pair would become the second waltz of Schatz-Walzer. A new waltz begins later in the scene when Saffi and Czipra explain, "Doch mehr als Gold und Geld ist Lieb' mit Treu' gesellt'" (But love and fidelity are stronger bonds than gold and cash). Strauss used this tune for the first part of the fourth waltz in Schatz-Walzer.

By opening Schatz-Walzer with a stately, march-like introduction, Strauss evokes the military atmosphere that is a prominent aspect of Der Zigeunerbaron. Four pairs of waltzes follow (the usual fifth is a repeat of no. 1). Unlike the earlier "Blue Danube," the Schatz-Walzer includes bridge passages between each pair of waltzes. Numbers 2 and 4 witness a repeat of their first halves, both of which are the waltzes take from Der Zigeunerbaron. Strauss's astounding capacity for melodic invention is evident in the variety of tunes, some moving by leap, others by step, some notes sustaining for nearly an entire measure, others changing every beat.



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