Ion Ivanovici
Romanian military band leader and composer (1845–1902)

Ion Ivanovici (Serbian Cyrillic: Јован Ивановић) (alternatively: Jovan Ivanović, Iosif Ivanovici, Josef Ivanovich) (1845 – 28 September [O.S. 15 September] 1902) was a Romanian military band conductor and composer of Banat Serbian origin, best remembered today for his waltz Waves of the Danube.
Biography
Ivanovici was born in Temesvár, Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire (today Timișoara, Romania). His interest in music began after he learned to play a flute given to him when he was a child.
Ivanovici moved to and lived most of his life in Galați in the Kingdom of Romania. Reaching the rank of officer in the Romanian army, his interest in military music culminates during his appointment as general inspector of military music in 1900. In 1901 he settled in Bucharest where he died a year later.
Although today Ivanovici is chiefly remembered for his waltz "Waves of the Danube" ("Donauwellen" in German, "Flots du Danube", in French), in his lifetime he composed over 300 works (many of them lost today).
Other notable compositions are Carol I March, dedicated to King Carol of Romania, "Carmen Sylva" waltz, dedicated to Queen Elisabeth of Romania, and "Romanian heart" waltz op 51 ("Inimă română" in Romanian, "Cordialité roumaine" in French).
His works were published by over sixty publishing houses throughout the world. In 1889, Ivanovici won the coveted march prize to mark the World Exhibition in Paris, out of 116 entries.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Ion Ivanovici” as romanian military band leader and composer (1845–1902). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as romanian military band leader and composer (1845–1902). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q375477. VIAF identifies the subject as 2656436. The Library of Congress control number is n87805279. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1845, 1902, 1900 and 1901.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ion Ivanovici” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.