Sobre las Olas

Piano sheet music for the piece (Germany)

The waltz "Sobre las Olas" (or "Over the Waves") is the best-known work of Mexican composer Juventino Rosas (1868–1894). It "remains one of the most famous Latin American pieces worldwide", according to the "Latin America" article in The Oxford Companion to Music.^[1]

It was first published by Rosas in 1888.^[2] It remains popular as a classic waltz, and has also found its way into New Orleans Jazz and Tejano music.

The song remains popular with country and old-time fiddlers in the United States.

Film

A Mexican film titled Sobre las olas was released in 1933.^[3]

The Mexican film biography of Juventino Rosas, released in 1950 and starring Pedro Infante, is entitled Sobre las olas (Over the Waves).^[4]

In popular culture

• In the United States, Sobre las Olas has a cultural association with funfairs and trapeze artists, as it was one of the tunes available for Wurlitzer's popular line of fairground organs.
• In 1950 the music was adapted by Irving Aaronson with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster for the MGM movie The Great Caruso. The resulting song The Loveliest Night of the Year was sung by Ann Blyth in the film, and the recording by her co-star Mario Lanza became one of the most-popular songs of 1951.^[5]
• The music was later adapted by Georges Panken, Harry Stranger and Willy Blox. Their version was entitled "Oh, Oh What a Kiss".
• The composition is featured in the film Stage Fright (1950).
• Simone Signoret and Serge Reggiani dance to this tune in the opening scene of Jacques Becker's 1952 film Casque d'or (Golden Helmet).
• The song appears along with Entry of the Gladiators, as a medley, in the circus tribe stages in Lemmings 2: The Tribes.
• This waltz is performed in the James Bond movie Octopussy in the scene in the circus in Germany.
• On Sesame Street, Ernie often sang a song called George Washington Bridge to this melody.
• The tune is featured in the RKO Radio Pictures feature When's Your Birthday? (1937), starring Joe E. Brown.
• Sobre las Olas can be heard in the score of Disney's 1944 film The Three Caballeros during The Cold-Blooded Penguin segment.
• The song has also been used in Popeye cartoons.
• An homage to this song appears as the bridge of The Dead Kennedys' track "Chemical Warfare," which appears on their 1980 album Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables.
• On Barney and Friends episode "Classical Cleanup", Mr. Boyd plays this song on the piano while Baby Bop dances and accidentally makes a mess in the classroom.
• This is one of the songs featured in the video game Wii Music, under its alternate title of "Over the Waves."
• The waltz is used as background music in Sega's 1980 arcade game Carnival (video game).
• An homage to this song appears in the bridge of the song "Drowning In Berlin" by the British new wave group The Mobiles at approximately 2:06.
• The song appears on the Woody Woodpecker's episode Niagara Fools (1956).

References

External links

• Sobre las Olas: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Sobre las Olas: Mexican Music from Nineteenth-Century New Orleans. Louisiana Digital Library.
• Sheet music for "Sobre Las Olas", F. Trifet & Co., 1895.