Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss, Jr. is the first truly well-known composer in those classical genres particular to his hometown, the Viennese waltz and Viennese operetta. The Blue Danube Waltz is not only the most popular of his works in the former category, but is among the most widely played and arranged pieces of its time, known to the most casual listener today from many radio, film and television uses of it.
Johann Strauss, Jr. was born in Vienna on October 25, 1825. He showed remarkable skills early in his childhood, despite his father's opposition to any career in music for any of his three sons. Johann, Sr. wanted him to become a banker, but the younger Strauss had his own ideas, taking violin lessons in secret from a player in his father's band. When Strauss was 17 his father left the family, thus allowing him to begin serious study without encumbrance. His mother, a good amateur violinist who had always encouraged him, remained supportive. Strauss now studied theory with Joseph Drechsler and took violin lessons from Anton Kohlmann. In 1844 young Johann led his first concert and a year later formed his own band, thereby competing with his father's orchestra. He was also writing his own quadrilles, mazurkas, polkas, and waltzes for performance by his ensemble, even conducting works by his father, and receiving praise from the press. He was given the honorary position of Bandmaster of the 2nd Vienna Citizens' Regiment (his father was bandmaster of the 1st regiment) in 1845, and in 1847 began composing for the Vienna Men's Choral Association.
His real success began in 1849 after Johann Strauss, Sr. died. Johann, Jr. merged his father's orchestra with his own and took up his father's contracts. His career moved along smoothly for the next several years, but in 1853 he became seriously ill and turned over conducting duties to his younger brother, Josef, for six months. After his recovery he resumed fully both his conducting and his composing activities, eventually gaining the respect of such composers as Brahms, Wagner, and Verdi for his seemingly unlimited imagination for using melodies.
Strauss married singer Henriette "Jetty" Treffz in August 1862, and they settled in Hietzing. Thereafter, she became his business manager and apparently a great inspiration, drawing him toward operetta, just as Viennese theater operators were becoming tired of the works of Offenbach. His first, Indigo und die vierzig Räuber, came in 1871, and his most famous, Die Fledermaus, was staged three years later with great success. Eine Nacht in Venedig (1883) and Der Zigeunerbaron (1885) were his only other international operetta hits.
In 1872, he traveled to the United States and led highly successful concerts in Boston and New York. For all the success that came in the 1870s for Strauss, there was also much grief: his mother and brother Josef died in 1870, and his wife died suddenly of a heart attack in 1878. Her death devastated him, and the suddenly helpless composer unwisely married the much-younger actress Angelika Dittrich, six weeks later. The marriage lasted only four years, though it may have saved the composer from personal disaster in the months following his wife's death.
Strauss, a Roman Catholic, left the church and had to give up his Austrian citizenship to marry Adele Deutsch in 1887, owing to the Church's unwillingness to recognize his divorce. His new wife, with whom he had lived for a long period before their marriage, seemed to inspire him much like his first wife. In his last years, Strauss remained quite productive and active. He was working on a ballet, Cinderella, when he developed a respiratory ailment which grew into pneumonia. He died on June 3, 1899.
© Robert Cummings /TiVo
-
Autumnal Strauss II
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 10/10/2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Stay at Home with J. Strauss II
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 21/01/2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
100 Must-Have Operetta Melodies
Classical - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC on 21/01/2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Great Music Classics, Vol. 8 - Great Strauss Classics
Classical - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC. on 7/07/2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Art of Samuil Samosud: Johann Strauss II - Waltzes & Polkas
Classical - Released by Music Online on 5/10/2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Johann Strauss II Essential Recordings
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 26/10/2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Kunstlerleben. Piano Music from the Golden Age
Peter Phillips, Johann Strauss II, Bedrich Smetana, Cyril Scott, Léo Delibes, Enrique Granados
Classical - Released by Novus Promusica on 5/03/2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Clasicos Inmortales
Orquesta Filarmonica de Austria
Classical - Released by Vibra Music Entertainment S.A.S. on 19/04/2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Blue Danube (lofi version)
The Remix Station, Beathoven, Johann Strauss II
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released by The Remix Station on 30/06/2023
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Indigo March, Op. 349
Classical - Released by Digital Music Group, Inc. on 1/10/2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Strauss: Wiener Blut (Vienna Blood)
Classical - Released by Tuxedo Music on 23/05/2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Valses De Amor
Gran Orquesta Viena Harmony, Johann Strauss II
Classical - Released by Tam-Tam Media on 1/07/2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Classical Collection - Strauss II - Valses
The Wiener Volksoper Orchestra
Classical - Released by ClassicalPirosDigital on 11/06/2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
An der schönen blauen Donau (Johann Strauss II)
Classical - Released by soundnotation on 18/04/2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Classical Masters - Johann Strauss Jr.
Classical - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC. on 1/12/2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Classical Collection - Strauss II - Romance de Viena
Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper
Classical - Released by ClassicalPirosDigital on 10/06/2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Beautiful Blue Danube
Vienna Strauss-Orchestra & Joseph Francek
Classical - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC. on 29/09/2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Famous Overtures, Beethoven, Handel, Bach & Rossini
Classical - Released by ClassicalPirosDigital on 8/09/2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Strauss: A Night in Venice
Classical - Released by Everest Records on 25/07/1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Waltz Medley
Classical - Released by Audiofonic Records on 10/08/2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Indigo and the Forty Thieves
Classical - Released by Audiofonic Records on 10/08/2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo