‘I advised my brother – in order to win the Petersburg engagement for himself (I had already been there 10 times & earned a lot of money) to compose something they would get excited about in Petersburg and suggested that he should do a pizzicato polka. He was hesitant about getting started – he was always like that – so in the end I proposed to him that the polka should be the work of the two of us. He took me up on that & lo and behold – the polka created a furore in the true sense of the word.’ That is what Johann Strauss remembered about the origin of the polka in a letter he wrote to Simrock, his publisher, on 1 April 1892.
On 1 June 1869 OS (= 13 June NS) Jetty Strauss, who had also travelled to Pavlovsk, informed Josef’s wife Caroline in Vienna, ‘Pepi & Jean are now writing a polka together – that will again be something new.’ The autograph manuscript of the joint composition has been lost, and which parts were the work of which brother cannot be determined from the extant sources.
The first performance was given at Pavlovsk near St Petersburg at a musical evening held on 12 June OS (= 24 June NS). The enthusiasm of the Russian audience is clear from the fact that Johann was called back six times and the polka had to be repeated twice.
The first performance in Vienna was given in the Sofiensaal with Johann conducting on 14 November 1869, during a promenade concert given by the three Strauss brothers. It was the first appearance by Johann and Josef after their return from St Petersburg. The orchestration of the original version is documented in the Fremden-Blatt newspaper on 13 November, where it was announced that it would be ‘performed just by a quartet’. Seven days later Zeitgeist, another newspaper, reported that the polka had been ‘performed with precision by the quartet’. However, the Pizzicato Polka was also published in a version for large orchestra, with a new setting for the strings and with the winds not only playing in the opening tutti chord but also being included in the orchestration throughout.
Johann & Josef Strauss: Pizzicato Polka © by WienBibliothek im Rathaus (2019)
Saturday, 05. May 198411.00 o' clock Vienna ⁄ Musikverein ⁄ The Große Musikvereinssaal
Concert at the Musikverein Vienna
Kurt Woess conductor
Program Johann Strauss II : Ouverture to «Die Fledermaus» Johann Strauss II : Singers Joy / Polka française op. 328 Josef Strauss : Without a Care! / Quick polka op. 271 Johann Strauss II : Roses from the South / Waltz op. 388 Johann Strauss II : Chit-Chat Polka op. 214 Johann Strauss II : Voices of Spring / Waltz op. 410 Johann Strauss II : Thunder and Lightning / Quick polka op. 324 Break Johann Strauss II : Egyptian March op. 335 Carl Michael Ziehrer : Walk In / Waltz op. 518 Eduard Strauss I : Brakes off / Quick polka op. 238 Johann & Josef Strauss : Pizzicato Polka Johann Strauss II : Bandits Galop / Polka schnell op. 378 Karl Komzák II. : The girls of Baden / Walz op. 257 Encore Johann Strauss II : The Blue Danube / Waltz op. 314 Johann Strauss II : Explosions Polka op. 43 Johann Strauss I : Radetzky March op. 228
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