Strauss, Johann, Jr.

(1825–1899)

   The son of a very talented composer and orchestra leader, Strauss was forbidden by his father to follow in his footsteps. It was his mother who encouraged his career. In 1844, following his study of music theory and composition with the choirmaster of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Strauss made his debut conducting his own orchestra at a casino in one of Vienna’s outer districts. When his father died in 1849, the son combined the two ensembles.

   Popularity came to Strauss quickly; only his association with dissidents during the Revolutions of 1848 kept him, until 1863, from the directorship of the Court Ball, one of the highlights of the Vienna Fasching or Carnival season. He never lost his unconventional streak, renouncing his Catholicism to marry his third wife, who was Jewish, in the Lutheran church. His lengthy tours through Europe with his orchestra were enormous successes, as was his visit to the United States in 1872.

   Strauss Jr. is known for his many graceful and melodic waltzes (“Blue Danube,” “Emperor Waltz,” “Tales from the Vienna Woods”) and a wide variety of other dance compositions. Some of these are really concert pieces, so musically elaborate that they defy execution in normal ballroom settings. The great popularity of operettas by the French composer Jacques Offenbach, especially Orpheus in the Underworld, which premiered in Vienna in 1860, moved Strauss to explore the genre. He wrote two classics, Die Fledermaus (1874) and The Gypsy Baron (1885). The appeal of both comes in large part from the composer’s fluent interweaving of harmonic and rhythmic structures found in common dance forms. Nevertheless, both works— Strauss called them light operas—show the composer’s familiarity with Richard Wagner’s technique of musical leading motifs. They are still performed today.