Obiter recalls that when ex-Clifford Chance managing partner Tony Williams looked back on his career for Gazette readers last year, he recalled his reasoning for declining to return to corporate transactional work. ‘I don’t think I would want to go back and do M&A,’ he said, ‘because I don’t really enjoy the virility dance at two in the morning.’

But what, Obiter now wonders, if that dance was a waltz? It’s been a few years since the New Year’s Day concert from Vienna included a programme item that made solicitors ‘feel seen’. In 2017, Die Extravaganten Waltzer featured – a piece written for the 1858 Solicitors’ Ball, which is therefore also referred to as ‘The Solicitors’ Waltz’.

Worth the wait though, because this year conductor Riccardo Muti lifted his baton for a piece that may well have M&A lawyers reaching for their dancing shoes. Millions around the globe were treated to a performance of Josef Strauss’ 1865 Transactionen (‘Transactions’) Waltz. As one music commentator says of it: ‘The title of the waltz Transactionen conjures up thoughts of the stock exchange, shares, capital, interest, and so on.’

And Obiter has to say it’s something of a belter. The style is set as ‘Maestoso’ – majestic and stately, and it takes just 35 bars to get very, very loud (‘fff’).

So next time your corporate colleagues close a deal, whatever the time of day or night, why not turn up the volume for Opus 184, and take your [equity] partner by the hand?

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