Éljen a Magyar!, op. 332

Éljen a Magyar! — Long live the Hungarian! — is a polka schnell Strauss wrote in 1869 following the reception his orchestra had been given in Pest. The title is a toast, and the music makes its Hungarian gesture through rhythm rather than quotation: sharp accents, a driving duple pulse, cadences that snap shut. Strauss kept close professional ties to Hungary throughout his career, and the piece dates from the years immediately after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, when such gestures carried political as well as social weight in Vienna's ballrooms.