Cachucha-Galopp

The best known example of the Spanish cachucha - or the best known in this country at least - is a chorus in The Gondoliers (“Dance a cachucha”) that refers to “the reckless delight of that wildest of dances!” Something of that recklessness must have inspired the older Johann Strauss who, in tribute to the dancer Fanny Elssler, contrived in his Cachucha-Galopp to combine the rhythms of two wild dances within an hour before the ball it was intended for. According to someone who was there, “it was performed without rehearsal, accorded exceptional applause and repeated three times.”