“The Waltz King” Turns 200
October 25 marks the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss Jr. (1825–1899). Known as “The Waltz King,” Strauss is most remembered for his light dance music. His output of over 500 compositions included ballets, polkas, marches, quadrilles, mazurkas, operettas, and—of course—150 waltzes. He cemented the waltz as the height of sophistication and elegance, and his music came to symbolize Vienna’s cultural golden age before the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Strauss was born into a musical family. His father, Johann Strauss Sr., was a composer of dance music and orchestra leader himself but discouraged his son from pursing music professionally, pushing a respectable career in banking instead. Defying his father’s wishes, the young Strauss secretly took violin lessons from his father’s concertmaster and composed his first waltz at age six.
When Strauss Sr. abandoned his family for his young mistress, the 17-year-old Johann was finally free to pursue his musical aspirations more seriously. He began studying composition and theory and formed his own orchestra at 19, which came to rival that of his father. When his father died in 1849, Strauss Jr. took over his father’s orchestra and merged the two ensembles. His star continued to rise in Vienna and abroad as he toured with his orchestra across Europe and America, playing his original compositions alongside those of other composers. He became an international sensation, even conducting a 1,000-piece orchestra in Boston as part of the World Peace Festival, an event that attracted 50,000 spectators over the three-week festival.
Before Strauss got his hands on the genre, the waltz had been the domain of the beer hall, not the glittering ballrooms of the aristocracy. But that changed once he became the official conductor of the court balls in Vienna. This appointment led him to compose of some of his most famous waltzes, including “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” (1867). Through these compositions, he elevated the traditional form of the waltz by incorporating rich melodies and sophisticated orchestration.
In 1870, he resigned from his position as court conductor to focus on writing operettas—a genre he had come to love after meeting Jacques Offenbach. Strauss’s most famous operetta, Die Fledermaus (1874), is still a mainstay at opera houses today, and its overture is often excerpted for the concert hall.
If his other operettas are not performed with the same frequency, some of his best-loved waltzes derive from his operetta scores, including the “The Treasure Waltz” from The Gypsy Baron (1885). He continued to compose glittering dance music to the end of his days. He was working on a ballet called Aschenbrödel when he died in 1899.
Today, Strauss is still heralded as a symbol of Viennese culture. There are two museums dedicated to the Waltz King in Vienna, and his music is an integral part of the Viennese ball season. His music still has the power to enchant audiences around the world, with the Vienna Philharmonic’s annual New Year’s Concerts (which air on PBS) bringing in 50 million television viewers each year.
