This is a luscious little piece for orchestra, the sort of thing Sir Thomas Beecham habitually called a "lollipop." Although his wider reputation is as a vocal and operatic composer, Dominick Argento (born 1927) has written numerous works for the Minnesota Orchestra since he joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota in the 1960s. (He is a Regents' Professor of that institution.) He wrote this Valse Triste for conductor David Zinman, the festival director of the Viennese Sommerfest, a regular part of the orchestra's season. For the 1996 season, the organization put together a Birthday Divertimento for Zinman, who would be turning 60 that year. The Divertimento comprised a garland of 19 short compositions by famous composers, including several of Argento's fellow winners of the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Correctly anticipating that most of the birthday tributes would be exuberant, Argento contributed this slow, wistful piece. In the event, these qualities made it stand out among the other pieces. It is only 33 measures long and lasts less than two minutes. The most-famous work with the title Valse Triste (Sad Waltz) is by Jean Sibelius from his incidental music to the play Kuolema. The Argento composition begins with similar scoring and the same accentuation as the Sibelius work. This Valse Triste is for strings alone with harp and with the string sections subdivided, except for the basses. The tempo marking is Adagietto e mesto (Fairly slow and mournful). The work deliberately sets out to imitate the Sibelius waltz, at least initially. But very soon, the listener is wondering whether the waltz is closer to one of the Gymnnopédies by French composer Erik Satie. These references surely explain to the listener why the Valse Triste sounds faintly familiar. But then the real reason dawns on the listener: the melody is a subtly altered variant of "Good Morning to You," the 1893 song by the American popular composer Mildred J. Hill, much better-known by its later words "Happy Birthday to you." The similarity is fleeting, but a phrase melody is repeated even more clearly. It is a "Happy Birthday" to Maestro Zinman.

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