Download Johann Strauss Jr. was born on October 25, 1825 in Vienna

Johann Strauss Jr.
-Early Life !
Johann Strauss Jr. was born on October 25, 1825 in Vienna, Austria. He was the eldest son of
Johann Strauss Sr. who was also a famous composer and conductor , known as “the father of
the waltz”.Although the elder Strauss wanted his sons to pursue his business careers , the
musical talents of Johann, Jr .,quickly became evident , as he composed his first waltz at the age
of six.
Strauss’s mother secretly encouraged the musical education of her son behind his father’s back.
She arranged for one of the member’s of the father’s orchestra to give the younger Johann
lessons without his father’s knowledge. When his father left the family in 1940, Strauss was
relieved, for it meant that he could freely pursue his music without secrecy .At the age of
nineteen he organized his own small orchestra, which performed some of his compositions in a
restaurant in Hietzing. When his father died in 1849, Strauss combined his band with his
father’s and became the leader .He ultimately earned his own nickname, “the king of the waltz”
or “the waltz king”.
-Touring
Strauss toured throughout Europe and England with great success and also went to America.
He conducted huge concerts in Boston, Massachusetts , and New York City .He was the official
conductor of the court balls in Vienna from 1863-1870.During the time he composed his most
famous waltzes , including “On the Beautiful Blue Danube (1876) , probably the best known
waltz ever written , “Artists Life” (1867) , “Tales from the Vienna Woods (1868) , and “Wine ,
Women , and Song (1869).In 1863 Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880) , Paris’s most popular
composer of light operas , visited Vienna. The two composers met .The success Offenbach’s
stage works encouraged Strauss to try writing operettas. He resigned as court conductor in
1870 to devote himself to this pursuit.
-Marriages
He married the singer Henrietta Treffz in 1862, and they remained together until her death in
1878. Six weeks after her death . He married Angelika Dittrich .Dittrich was not a fervent
supporter of his music, and their differences in status and opinion, and especially her
indescretion, led him to seek divorce.
-Music and Rivals
Although Strauss was the most sought –after composer of dance music in the latter half of the 19th
century stiff competition was present in the form of Karl Micheal Zierher and Emile Waldteufel , the
latter held a commanding position of the KK Holfball music director