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Johann Strauss II (1825-1899)

Rechercher des événements de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Strauss II
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© Public domain
Fichier de données
Année de naissance1825
Année du décès1899
NationalitéAutriche
ÉpoqueRomantique
Profile

Austrian composer and best-known member of a dynasty who brought ballroom music – and the waltz in particular – to a height of sophistication and popularity in nineteenth-century Vienna.

His father, also called Johann, was himself a composer who took the waltz and other fashionable dances to new levels of professional polish, and whose orchestra, formed to perform them, achieved international renown. He is best known today for his Radetzky March. He was strongly opposed to his first son, Johann, following the same course, intending him for a career in banking, and it was only after the elder Strauss left his family in 1842 that the younger, now 17 years old, undertook formal musical training. Two years later, he gave his first concert with a new orchestra of his own, which quickly rivalled the success of his father’s, and when the latter died in 1849, the two orchestras were merged under the son’s direction.

In the ensuing decades, Strauss the Younger achieved even greater success than his father, directing his orchestra from the violin throughout most of Europe (including Russia and England) and undertaking a conducting visit to America in 1872. Feted wherever he went, he acquired an unofficial status not only as ‘king of the waltz’ but also Austria’s most influential ambassador, and in 1863 he was appointed to the post of Hofballmusikdirektor (director of the court dance-music) once held by his father. Among his musical admirers were Wagner, Brahms and Richard Strauss (no relation).

The growing popularity of operetta in Vienna led to Strauss composing his first stage works in the early 1870s, and altogether he produced 17 of these light comic operas, mostly for the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. In these, he was less successful, though at least two – Die Fledermaus (1874) and Der Zigeunerbaron (1885) – still hold their places in the repertory today.

Strauss’s achievement, building on that of his father, was to elevate dance forms such as the waltz and (to a lesser extent the polka) from their folk roots to the status they enjoy today as orchestral concert music, thanks mainly to his gift for melody, inventive variety and the broad sweep and dash with which he gathered his dances into large sets with characteristic or playful titles. The most famous include An der schönen blauen Donau (‘On the beautiful blue Danube’), Wein, Weib und Gesang (‘Wine, women and song’) and the Kaiser-Walzer (‘Emperor Waltz’).

Profile © Lindsay Kemp 2025

Liste des œuvres
'An der Elbe' Op.477Acceleration WaltzAn der Moldau, Op.366Annen Polka, Op.117Auf der Jagd, Polka Schnell, Op.373Bandit's Gallop, Op.378Bei uns z'Haus, Walzer, Op.361Champagne Polka, Op.211CzardasDer Zigeunerbaron (Le Baron tzigane): OuvertureDer Zigeunerbaron, (The Gypsy Baron): Entrance March, Op.422Die FledermausDie Fledermaus, Op.56: CzardasDie Fledermaus, Op.56: Klänge der HeimatDie Fledermaus, Op.56: Mein Herr Marquis "Laughing song"Die Fledermaus, Op.56: Spiel ich die Unschuld vom LandeDie Fledermaus: excerptsDonauweibchen, Op.427Egyptischer Marsch (Marche égyptienne), Op.335Eine Nacht in Venedig: OvertureFantasieblümchen, Op.241Fest-Quadrille, Op.44Frühlingsstimmen (Voix du printemps), Op.410Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald (Légendes de la forêt viennoise), Op.325Gruß aus Österreich, Op.359Im Krapfenwaldl (Cuckoo Polka), Op.336Imperial BallIndigo and the Forty Thieves: OvertureKaiserwalzer (La Valse de l'Empereur), Op.437Künstlerleben (Artist's Life Waltz), Op.316La Chauve-souris (Die Fledermaus)La Chauve-souris (Die Fledermaus), Op.56: ouvertureLagunen-Walzer, Op.411Le Beau Danube bleu (An der schönen blauen Donau), Op. 314Leichtes Blut, Op.319Liebeslieder, Op.114Lob der Frauen (Louange des femmes), Op.315Napolean March, Op.156Neue Pizzicato Polka, Op.449Nordseebilder (North Sea Pictures), Op.390Orpheus-Quadrille, Op.236Perpetuum Mobile, Op.257Persian March, Op.289Pizzicato PolkaPleasure Train Polka (Vergnügungszug), Op.281Ritter Pázmán: CsárdásRomanze no. 1, Op.243Rosen aus dem Süden (Roses from the South), Op.388Schatz Waltz (Treasure waltz), Op.418Seid umschlungen Millionen (Be Embraced Millions), Op.443Sinngedichte (Poems of the Senses or Epigrams), Op.1Spanish March, Op.433Sängerslust, Op.328Thousand and One Nights, Op.346Tik-Tak Polka, Op.365Tritsch Tratsch Polka, Op.214Une nuit à VeniseUnter Donner und Blitz (Sous le tonnerre et les éclairs), Op.324Waldmeister Overture, Op.468Wein, Weib und Gesang (Wine, Women and Song), Op.333Wiener Blut, Op.354Wiener Blut: Das Eine kann ich nicht verzeihenWiener Bonbons, Op. 307Wo die Zitronen blüh'n! (Where the Lemons Blossom), Op.364Éljen a Magyar! (Vive la Hongrie!), Op.332