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
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Romantic Vol. V, Vienna Melodies
Classical - Released by SB Clasic on 11/10/1994
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Viennese Spirit, Op. 354
Classical - Released by Audiofonic Records on 10/08/2019
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Tales From Vienna Woods: Famous Vienna Waltzes
Classical - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC. on 29/09/2009
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Selected Pieces By Johann Strauss II
Classical - Released by Cascade-Medien on 16/08/2006
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Delirien Waltz Waltz, Op. 211
Classical - Released by Digital Music Group, Inc. on 1/10/2005
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Egyptian March Op. 335
Orchestra of Viennese Volksoper
Classical - Released by Digital Music Group, Inc. on 1/10/2005
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Gablenz March March, Op. 159
Classical - Released by Digital Music Group, Inc. on 1/10/2005
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Cosmic Classical: Scorpio
Georges Bizet, Johann Strauss II, Carl Maria von Weber
Lounge - Released by PMI Collins Classics on 29/09/2021
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Strauss : A Night In Venice - Benatzky and Stolz: The White Horse Inn - Lehár: The Merry Widow
Classical - Released by Reader's Digest Music on 1/06/2010
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Cruising Classical Music
Classical - Released by Classic Records on 2/06/2017
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Happiness Classical Music
Classical - Released by Classic Records on 4/04/2017
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New Year's Eve Vienna Concert
Johann Strauss II, Josef Strauss, Johann Strauss
Classical - Released by Music Ware on 29/12/2016
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The Gypsy Baron
Classical - Released by Audiofonic Records on 10/08/2019
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Great Composers of Classical Music, Vol. IV
Classical - Released by ADAGIO on 13/05/2016
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Classical Music To Travel
Classical - Released by Classic Records on 23/02/2017
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Les plus belles valses
Classical - Released by Music Ware on 1/01/2016
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Concierto de Año Nuevo en Viena
Concertos - Released by 2015 Imex Media on 21/05/2015
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Legendary Conductor
Classical - Released by Unchained Melodie on 1/11/2013
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J. Strauss II - On the Beautiful Blue Danube
Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Victor Desarzens
Classical - Released by Violet Hill Records on 11/06/2012
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J. Strauss II - Artist's Life Waltz
The Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Joseph Leo Gruber
Classical - Released by Violet Hill Records on 11/06/2012
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Strauss Waltzes
Hans-Jurgen Walther, The Danube Strings
Classical - Released by Sunday Club Records on 27/02/2014
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