"Pizzicato" - Polka, op. 449

In the summer of 1869, brothers Johann and Josef Strauss spent time in Pavlovsk near St. Petersburg, jointly directing concerts at the Vauxhall. Within just a few months, a series of masterpieces was created. To offer the audience something unique, Johann Strauss suggested to his brother that they compose a Pizzicato Polka. Josef was initially hesitant to commit to such a composition.

As Johann Strauss later recounted to his publisher Friedrich August Simrock in 1892, he volunteered to compose the piece together with his brother. Pepi agreed. The unusual nature of this collaboration alarmed Jetty Strauss, who had accompanied her husband to Russia. She wrote to Vienna: “Jean and Pepi are now working on a polka together. This will certainly be something new.”

The piece Jetty Strauss mentioned so casually, the Pizzicato Polka, had its first, second, and third performances on the evening of June 24, 1869, in Pavlovsk near St. Petersburg. It caused such a sensation that it was immediately repeated after its premiere and performed once more at the end of the concert.

Since then, the Pizzicato Polka has often been imitated (for example, by Léo Delibes), but no other work has quite managed to match its perfection.

Text: Prof. Franz Mailer