Perpetuum mobile: Quick Polka Op.257

Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

Perpetuum mobile: Quick Polka Op.257

If any one work could be said to sum up the Strauss genius in less time than it takes to boil an egg, it is the non-stop flow of melodic invention, instrumental inspiration, and unpretentious wit of Perpetuum mobile. This “musical joke,” as the composer called it, was inspired by a press notice for a remarkable evening when Johann and his two brothers, Josef and Eduard, 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,” the newspaper called it, and that is exactly what Johann contrived to achieve in a quick polka written for a different ballroom a couple of months later. There being, in theory, no reason why it should ever stop, it is up to the conductor to choose how to bring perpetual motion to an end.