Vienna, Austria, late 1870s. After suffering an irreparable misfortune, the Austrian composer Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-99), the Waltz King, falls in love with a ballet dancer, which disappoints the famous operetta singer Marie Geistinger…

After an emergency plane landing in the desert, the actress Barbara gets to know the industrialist Thomas. After they are rescued, the two live at Thomas' place in Berlin. Although she confesses her love for him, Thomas asks his brother Werner to look after Barbara, as he feels he is too consumed by work and doesn't wish to be bound to anyone. Only after a fight with his brother does Thomas realize how much in love with Barbara he really is; but by that time, she has left him. For years, Thomas searches in vain for her until one day he meets her in New York ... where she is now married.

The young musician and composer Josef lives with Beethoven's music copyist in Grinzing. In the evenings, he plays for dances in the Prater, often his own melodies, although he doesn't make much effort to spread them, as they're almost all waltzes, a dance not well-regarded in high society because they're too sweaty. When one evening a lively princess—fresh from the convent—mingles incognito with the Prater crowd and falls in love with the dashing conductor Josef, an entire cultural system of values ​​begins to crumble.

A biopic of soprano Maria Malibran (1808–1836). A beautiful singer, Maria Malibran, is forced to turn to the stage after her husband takes to gambling, and goes to Paris where she falls in love with a famous violinist. When her money-seeking husband reappears, the couple go to London, where they find happiness. A composer falls in love with Maria but when his affections are unrequited, he becomes broken, takes to drinking and dies.

In 1880s Paris, an attractive Russian art student befriends the famous writer Maupassant. She is taken to the ballrooms and cafés of Montmartre.