Perpetuum mobile

Johann Strauss II

Perpetuum mobile, Op.257

If any work could be said to sum up the Strauss genius in less time than it takes to cook an egg, it is the non-stop flow of melodic invention, instrumental inspiration, and unpretentious wit of Perpetuum mobile. It was inspired by a press comment on a remarkable evening when the Strauss brothers each conducted one of three balls going on simultaneously in the same hall in Vienna in 1861: “Perpetual motion, or the dance without an end,” one paper called it, and that is exactly what Johann Strauss contrived to achieve in a quick polka written for a different ballroom a couple of months later. There being, theoretically, no reason why it should ever stop, it is up to the conductor to choose when to bring perpetual motion to an end.