Champagne polka

Johann Strauss II

Pizzicato Polka (in collaboration with Josef Strauss)

Champagne Polka, Op.211

Tritsch Tratsch Polka, Op.214

Thunder & Lightning Polka, Op.324

A polka for plucked strings only was a brilliant idea: it would provide a memorably alliterative title and it would be a novel sound. But it was easier said than done, as Josef Strauss found when his elder brother tried to persuade him to write one. In the end they collaborated on it - amusing themselves, no doubt, not only by scoring the sudden shifts in dynamics from fortissimo to pianissimo and back again but also by writing in the pauses which give the conductor an opportunity to tease his instrumentalists by keeping them anxiously waiting for the next beat.

The Champagne Polka was described by its composer as “a musical joke.” Although the punch-line comes in the middle and is repeated several times over, the rhythms fizz and the orchestration bubbles to the very end.

Named after a contemporary Viennese gossip publication, the Tritsch-Tratsch Polka suggests that tittle-tattle gets round the ballroom at tremendous speed and, nonsense though it might be, that it is of no less interest to the Hungarians in the middle than to the Viennese in the outer sections.

If Thunder and Lightning is the most popular of Johann II’s polkas, it could be because it has not only one of the best titles but also some of the best tunes, together with a series of witty observations on the weather - a roll of thunder in the opening bars followed by a flurry of evasive activity, a hectic middle section where the storm rages in lightning cymbal clashes and bass-drum thunder claps, and an ending that betrays not the least sign of any dampening of the irrepressible Viennese genius for having a good time.

Champagner (Champagne) Polka, Op.211

Although the polka was almost as popular as the waltz in the 1850s and 60s, it didn’t stay in fashion for anything like as long. It was an exhilarating ballroom exercise but it was neither as sexy for the dancer nor as interesting for the composer. Its high-energy requirement meant that it rarely lasted longer than two or three minutes while its high-speed rhythmic activity gave the composer little opportunity to do more than put a cheerful tune to it and dress it up in colourful orchestration. If he could also put a catchy title to it or introduce a special sound effect, so much the better. The Champagne Polka, which was written at the height of the polka craze in 1858, is a characteristic example. Described by the composer as “a musical joke,” it pops it punch line in the middle and, while the rhythms fizz and the orchestration bubbles, repeats it several times over.

Johann Strauss II

Egyptischer Marsch (Egyptian March) Op.335

Im Krapfenwald’l (Cuckoo) Polka française, Op.336

Pepetuum mobile, Op.257

Champagner (Champagne) Polka, Op.211

One of the least likely of Johann II’s many enterprises was the seasons of summer concerts - ten of them between 1856 and 1865, two more in 1869 and 1886 - which he conducted in the Vauxhall Pavilion in Pavlovsk Park near St Petersburg. After the conclusion of a favourable deal with the Tsarskoye-Selo Railway Company, which wanted to publicise its line between St Petersburg and Pavlovsk, he made a small fortune, the Russian audience had the privilege of being the first to hear such favourite pieces as the Tritsch-Tratsch and Pizzicato Polkas, and music by an unknown composer called Tchaikovsky was performed for the first time in public.

The Pavlovsk public clearly had a taste for special effects, since the Egyptian March, the Cuckoo and Champagne Polkas were all first performed in the Vauxhall Pavilion. The Egyptian March, written to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, is a wonderfully weird confection, coloured not only by exotic harmonies and percussion sounds but also some curious vocalisation. Whether it was in gratitude for this dubious tribute that Ismail Pasha sent Strauss two giraffes, on the occasion of the composer’s Golden Jubilee in 1890, history does not record.Written at about the same time and known in Russia as In Pavlovsk Woods and in Vienna by the more local title of Im Krapfenwald’l, the Cuckoo Polka features not one but, as we hear in the middle section and at the end, two or three avian creatures. The somewhat less imaginative Champagne Polka, written more than ten years earlier, is dependent on one extravagant effect repeated several times over. As for the Perpetuum mobile, if any work could be said to sum up the Strauss genius in less time than it takes to cook and egg, it is this non-stop flow of melodic invention, instrumental inspiration, and unpretentious wit.

Champagner (Champagne) Polka, Op.211

Although the polka was almost as popular as the waltz in the 1850s and 60s, it didn’t stay in fashion for anything like as long. It was an exhilarating ballroom exercise but neither as sexy for the dancer nor as interesting for the composer. Its high-energy requirement meant that it rarely lasted longer than two or three minutes while its high-speed rhythmic activity gave the composer little opportunity to do more than put a cheerful tune to it and dress it up in colourful orchestration. If he could also put a catchy title to it or introduce a special sound effect, so much the better. The Champagne Polka, which was written at the height of the polka craze in 1858, is a characteristic example. Described by the composer as “a musical joke,” it pops it punch line in the middle and, while the rhythms fizz and the orchestration bubbles, repeats it several times over.