As most Strauss family mavens are aware, Johann Strauss the elder is the lesser of the two Johanns, his son being the one who is the famous "Waltz King." That said, Johann I produced many fine waltzes, polkas, and other light dance pieces, as this effort, Cachucha-Galopp, amply demonstrates. The work was premiered in the Golden Pearl Inn in Vienna, in August 1837, but its main theme was borrowed from the 1836 ballet Le Diable Boiteux, where it served as accompaniment to a dance by Fanny Elssler. That number was a cachucha, a dance having Spanish origins, and Elssler reprised it in many venues thereafter, both popularizing its music and becoming identified with the dance style. The Strauss Cachucha-Galopp lasts a mere two minutes or so, but its playful manner and Spanish colors come through brilliantly in the composer's deft and mostly light scoring. The elegance of Viennese ballroom music is replaced here by joyous play and lively wit, by a sense of the carefree and mischievous. The work has a madcap character, sounding as much about slapstick as about dance. It is hardly surprising that this is one of Johann Strauss I's more popular and successful dance numbers.

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