Johann Strauss Jr. (part I)

Known as the Waltz King, Johann Strauss Jr. is one of the best known composers nowadays. But he is also one of the less understood. It is quite difficult to imagine that a man who wrote what is generally considered a light music was a profoundly insecure person with a great amount of personal complexes. At the same time, the great composer was gregarious, friendly and had an excellent, if somewhat peculiar, sense of humor. It is precisely these contradictions what make Johann Strauss Jr. so interesting and so difficult to understand. 

Johann Strauss Jr., 1876. (The photograph was taken from the Wikipedia and is currently in the public domain.)

Johann Strauss Jr., called Schani by his friends and relatives, was born in Vienna on October 25^th, 1825. His father, Johann Strauss Sr., was also known as the Waltz King, and remained such till his death from scarlet fever in 1849. Johann Jr., who was often present at the rehearsals of his father’s orchestra, showed an interest towards music from an early age, having written his first waltz when he was only 6 years old. His father, however, was against his son’s musical inclinations and their relationship became rather complicated. The fact that Strauss Sr. left his wife and five children to live with another woman, with whom he had already had children, did not help to improve the situation. 
         Anna Strauss, nee Streim, Johann Jr.’s mother, fully supported her son in his desire to begin his own musical career and found him one of the best teachers of the moment. In 1844 a nineteen-year-old Schani made his professional debut, giving a concert at the Casino Dommayer. ‘Good Evening, Strauss Father! Good Morning, Strauss Son!’ wrote the paper Der Wanderer the next day after this debut, and the new Waltz King was born. However, many people could not forgive young Strauss what they considered as an open rivalry with his father, and Johann had to write an open letter to defend himself. After Johann Sr.’s death, his son unified their respective orchestras.

Johann Strauss Jr.'s portrait, painted by A. Eisenmenger in 1888. (The picture was taken from the Wikipedia and is currently in the public domain.)

       From that moment, Johann Strauss began giving concerts on incredibly tight schedule, which led him to a nervous breakdown in 1853. It was his younger brother Josef, a talented engineer, who had to take over the Strauss Orchestra while he was recovering. The ill health had been following Johann his whole life.

In 1856 Johann initiated his summer concerts in Pavlovsk, Russia. There he met Olga Smirnitskaya, a twenty-year-old girl from a noble family and a composer of romances, and fell in love with her. Her parents, however, were against their marriage, and in 1862 Strauss married Henriette Chalupetzky, known as Jetty Treffz, an accomplished singer, seven years his senior.

       Jetty became his secretary, nurse and personal assistant. A clever woman with a deep knowledge of music and of money-related matters, she insisted that Strauss leave the orchestra to dedicate himself fully to the composition. It was also thanks to her that he was finally able to occupy the post of The Imperial Musical Director, previously denied to him due to the support he had given to the revolutionaries in 1848. Their relationship, however, started to deteriorate, partly due to Johann’s infidelities.  Jetty died from a heart attack in 1878. Johann, who had always been terrified of illness and death, did not attend her funeral. 

Johann Strauss Jr. with his wife Jetty Treffz. (The photograph was taken from the Wikipedia and is currently in the public domain.)

He was married six weeks later to a young actress Angelika ‘Lilly’ Dittrich (1850-1919). They divorced three years later after she had been unfaithful to him with a theatre director. In order to remarry, Strauss had to become a citizen of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and a Protestant (his divorce with Lilly had been recognized by the civil authorities, but not by the Catholic Church). Adele Strauss-Deutsch (1856-1930), his third wife, finally gave him the stability he needed – like Jetty she was his friend and advisor. Strauss lived with Adele till his death from pneumonia in 1899.