Description
Johann Strauss II (1825-1899) was perhaps the most famous and enduringly successful 19th-century light music composer. As part of the 1859-1861 Vienna Carnival seasons Johann and his brother organised a series of incredibly popular ‘Monster Balls’ under the title Carnevals Perpetuum mobile, oder: Tanz ohne Ende (Carnival’s Perpetual Motion, or Non-Stop Dancing). During the course of the evenings the brothers headed up separate orchestras and jointly played their way – non-stop – through 50 dances.
Following the whirlwind 1861 ball Johann wrote the novelty piece, Perpetuum mobile, subtitled Ein musikalische Scherz (A musical joke). In it Strauss ridicules the then commonplace practice whereby musicians exaggerated virtuosic showmanship to the detriment of musical quality.
The piece consists of just one, eight bar theme which is – as the title suggests – perpetually repeated in varying forms. That is until, eventually, one of the increasingly fed up performers (here, the oboist) stands up, faces the audience and says ‘And so on …’ (or words to that effect) and walks off the stage, whilst the remaining players gradually peter out and grind to a halt.
