Johann Strauss II’s “Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka”
Notes by TŌN oboist Quinton Bodnár-Smith
Have you ever wondered what a musical depiction of gossip would sound like? If you have, then the Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka is the piece for you! Johann Strauss II wrote this lively dance music that represents a popular pastime in Viennese society: gossiping! “Tritsch-tratsch” translates to “chit-chat” in English, and that definitely comes across to me as a listener from the beginning. With every flourish of the flutes and strings, I can imagine a group of people erupting in laughter, and the fast and short notes of the violins and the woodwinds can sound like snickering and hushed giggling.
Johann Strauss II, otherwise known as “The Waltz King” in his lifetime, helped popularize the dance in Vienna in the second half of the 19th century. Among his most popular works to this day are The Blue Danube waltz and the operetta Die Fledermaus, while Tritsch-Tratsch is one of his most famous polkas. A polka is often characterized by a steady “oom-pah” quality in the background. It originated in Bohemia (the modern-day Czech Republic) in the 1800s, but since then it has spread throughout the rest of Europe and even to the Americas. Polka has influenced a number of other musical genres, such as Norteño, maxixe, and biguine, all of which had origins in the Americas before being exported to the rest of the world.
Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka was premiered in Vienna on November 24, 1858, at a concert headed by Johann Strauss and his brother Josef. Three days later the Theater-Zeitung gave a positive review, citing a feeling of “freshness”, as well as “humorous coloring” and “piquant instrumentation” throughout the work. This comic nature of the music can be witnessed in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979), in a rather comical chase scene where Tritsch-Tratsch is played as if performed by a local orchestra on Piazza San Marco in Venice as Bond is attempting to escape through the middle of the plaza while piloting a gondola that has been outfitted as a hoverboard on dry land.