Strauss in his younger years
Strauss and Johannes Brahms photographed in Vienna
Strauss at the beginning of his career
Strauss in his younger years
Strauss and Johannes Brahms photographed in Vienna
Strauss at the beginning of his career
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Strauss was born in St. Ulrich near Vienna (now a part of Neubau), Austria, on October 25, 1825, the eldest son of Johann Strauss, Sr., a famous composer and conductor, known as "the father of the waltz." Although the elder Strauss wanted his sons to pursue business careers, the musical talents of Johann, Jr. quickly became evident, and he composed his first waltz at the age of 6.
Behind his father's back, Strauss' mother secretly procured a musical education for her son. He studied counterpoint and harmony with theorist Professor Joachim Hoffmann, who owned a private music school. His talents were also recognized by composer Joseph Drechsler, who taught him exercises in harmony. His other violin teacher, Anton Kollmann, was the ballet répétiteur of the Vienna Court Opera.
At the age of 19 Strauss organized his own small orchestra, which performed some of his compositions in a restaurant in Hietzing. When his father died in 1849, he combined both bands and became their leader and ultimately earned his own nickname, "the king of the waltz." Strauss toured throughout Europe and England with great success and also went to America, conducting mammoth concerts in Boston and New York.
Strauss was the official conductor of the court balls in Vienna (1863-1870) and during this time composed his most famous waltzes. They include On the Beautiful Blue Danube (1867), probably the best-known waltz ever written, Artist's Life (1867), and Wine, Women, and Song (1869). He elevated the waltz from the atmosphere of the beer hall and the restaurant to that of the aristocratic ballroom.
In 1863 Jacques Offenbach, Paris's most popular composer of light operas, visited Vienna, and the two composers met. The success of Offenbach's stage works encouraged Strauss to try writing operettas.
He resigned as court conductor in 1870 to devote himself to the composition of operettas. Of these, three remain consistently in the repertoire today. The finest of them, Die Fledermaus (1874; The Bat), is probably the greatest operetta ever written and a masterpiece of its genre. The lovely Du und Du waltz is made up of excerpts from this work. His two other most successful operettas were A Night in Venice (1883), from which he derived the music for the Lagoon Waltz, and The Gypsy Baron (1885), from which stems the Treasure Waltz. Strauss continued to compose dance music, including the famous waltzes Roses from the South (1880) and Voices of Spring (1883). This last work, most often heard today as a purely instrumental composition, was originally conceived with a soprano solo as the composer's only independent vocal waltz.
Strauss was diagnosed with pleuropneumonia, and on June 3, 1899 he died in Vienna, at the age of 73. He was buried in the Zentralfriedhof. At the time of his death, he was still composing his ballet Aschenbrödel.
Strauss is primarily famous for his waltzes and operettas. He was known as "The Waltz King", and responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century.
Two museums in Vienna are dedicated to Johann Strauss II. His residence in the Praterstrasse where he lived in the 1860s is now part of the Vienna Museum. The Strauss Museum is about the whole family with a focus on Johann Strauss II.
Strauss was not granted a divorce by the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore changed religion and nationality, and became a citizen of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in January 1887.
Strauss married the singer Henrietta Treffz in 1862, and they remained together until her death in 1878. Six weeks after her death, Strauss married the actress Angelika Dittrich. Dittrich was not a fervent supporter of his music, and their differences in status and opinion, and especially her indiscretion, led him to seek a divorce.
Strauss sought solace in his third wife Adele Deutsch, whom he married in August 1887. She encouraged his creative talent to flow once more in his later years, resulting in many famous compositions.
