Auf der Jagd, op. 373

Auf der Jagd is a polka schnell that Strauss assembled in 1875 from material in his operetta Cagliostro in Wien, first staged at the Theater an der Wien in February of that year. The hunting title is taken literally: the score calls for whip cracks and horn calls, and the tempo is pressed hard from the first bar. Strauss regularly mined his stage works for the ballroom in this way, and several of the operetta's numbers had a longer life as concert dances than the operetta itself, which left the repertoire within a generation.