Champagner-Polka, op. 211

Champagner-Polka dates from 1858, one of a run of dance numbers Strauss produced for the Viennese carnival seasons of the late 1850s. Its conceit is written into the scoring: the percussion imitates corks leaving bottles, and the effect is placed so that the audience hears it as a joke rather than as decoration. Strauss was by then dividing his year between Vienna and the summer seasons at Pavlovsk outside St Petersburg, writing at a pace that produced dozens of opus numbers annually. The polka has stayed in the New Year repertoire ever since.