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Johann Strauss (1825–99)

“Vienna without Strauss is like Austria without the Danube,” wrote Hector Berlioz on the death of Johann Strauss in 1849. But Vienna wasn’t without Strauss: the late Johann’s son of the same name was already engaged on the career that would make him far more famous than his father and probably much richer than any musician living in Austria at the time. Johann Strauss I had played a significant role in creating a demand for the Viennese waltz but it was through the inexhaustible genius of Johann Strauss II that it became not just a dance but an industry with a world-wide market for its products. Waltzes and polkas Johann II and his brothers Josef and Eduard could write in their hundreds, and they could do it very brilliantly, but the cult did not stop there. It expanded out of the ballroom into the musical theatre and here Johann faltered until, on his third attempt, he produced an operetta worthy of his genius with Die Fledermaus in 1874. His other great success, Der Zigeunerbaron, was written as long as 11 years later. Where he never had a problem, however, was in supplying the Viennese waltzes which were an essential ingredient of his operettas whatever their setting, and they in their turn supplemented the prodigiously tuneful Strauss waltz repertoire.