Born: Oct 25, 1825; Austria
Died: Jun 3, 1899; Austria
Period: Romantic
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 ViennaRead more 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. Read less
Label: Warner Classics
Catalog: 56571
Release Date: 04/10/2012
Number of Discs: 11
Composer:
Johann Strauss Sr.,
Johann Strauss Jr.,
Josef Strauss,
Eduard Strauss
...
Conductor:
Willi Boskovsky
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Johann Strauss Orchestra Vienna,
Vienna Symphony Orchestra,
Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra
...
Label: Warner Classics
Catalog: 828892
Release Date: 11/01/2011
Number of Discs: 6
Composer:
Johann Strauss Jr.,
Jacques Offenbach,
Charles Gounod,
Emil Waldteufel
...
Conductor:
Willi Boskovsky,
Manuel Rosenthal,
Herbert von Karajan,
Efrem Kurtz
...
Label: Naxos
Catalog: 8505226
Release Date: 04/26/2011
Number of Discs: 52
Composer:
Johann Strauss Jr.,
Robert Schumann,
Olga Smirnitzkaja
Performer:
Jozef Sikora,
Regina Jauslin,
Viktor Simcisko,
Katarína Vavreková
...
Conductor:
Alfred Walter,
Richard Edlinger,
Oliver Dohnányi,
Johannes Wildner
...
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Kosice Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra,
Polish National Philharmonic Orchestra Katowice,
Bratislava Slovak State Symphony Orchestra
...
Recommendation
Label: Opus Kura
Catalog: 1006/13
Release Date: 04/12/2011
Number of Discs: 8
Composer:
Johann Strauss Jr.,
Spoken Word,
Josef Strauss,
Johann Strauss Sr.
Performer:
Irene Eisinger,
Dajos Bela,
Barnabas Von Geczy,
Marcella Sembrich
...
Conductor:
Clemens Krauss,
Howard Barlow,
Erich Leinsdorf,
Harry Horlick
...
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Kölner Klavier-Trio
Recommendation
Label: Gramola
Catalog: 98908
Release Date: 04/12/2011
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Johann Strauss Jr.,
Franz Lehár,
Robert Stolz,
Walter Jurmann
...
Performer:
Akiko Nakajima,
Wolfgang Rauball
Conductor:
Niels Muus
Recommendation
Label: Euroarts
Catalog: 2051849
Release Date: 01/25/2011
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Johann Sebastian Bach,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Giuseppe Verdi,
Antonín Dvorák
...
Conductor:
Daniel Barenboim
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Label: Warner Classics
Catalog: 29557
Release Date: 09/14/2010
Number of Discs: 11
Composer:
Ludwig van Beethoven,
Johannes Brahms,
Felix Mendelssohn,
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
...
Performer:
Paul Tortelier,
Teresa Zylis-Gara,
Sylvia Geszty,
Gundula Janowitz
...
Conductor:
Rudolf Kempe
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Munich Philharmonic Orchestra,
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
...
Recommendation
Label: Sony Classical Masterworks
Catalog: 47284
Release Date: 11/30/2009
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Johann Strauss Jr.,
Johann Strauss Sr.,
Franz Lehár,
Roman Hoffstetter
...
Performer:
Pinchas Zukerman
Conductor:
Andre Kostelanetz,
Leonard Bernstein,
George Szell,
Eugene Ormandy
...
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Andre Kostelanetz Orchestra,
New York Philharmonic,
Cleveland Orchestra
...
Label: Time/Life Music
Catalog: 24742
Release Date: 06/30/2009
Number of Discs: 2
Composer:
Jules Massenet,
Ludwig van Beethoven,
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky,
Johann Paul A. Martini
...
Performer:
Keith Harvey,
José Luis Garcia,
Larry Dalton,
Skaila Kanga
...
Conductor:
David Firman,
Franck Pourcel,
Charles Gerhardt,
Eric Hammerstein
...
Orchestra/Ensemble:
National Philharmonic Orchestra,
Franck Pourcel Orchestra,
London Philharmonic Orchestra
...