Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/750

738 fête. On May 5, 1840, he conducted for the first time in the Imperial Volksgarten, which was crowded whenever his band performed, Strauss now introduced the quadrille, which he had studied in Paris, in place of the galop. His first work of the kind was the 'Wiener Carneval-Quadrille' (op. 124). Henceforward, except waltzes—among which the 'Donau-lieder' (op. 127) are still played he composed only quadrilles, polkas, and marches, including the favourite 'Radetzky-March.' On April 16, 1843, he and the band of his old Bürger-regiment accompanied the body of his old colleague Lanner to the grave. An excursion to Olmütz, Troppau, etc., in the autumn of 1844, was succeeded in the next autumn by one to Dresden, Magdeburg, and Berlin, where he was immensely fêted. The king appeared in person at Kroll's Garden, and invited Strauss to play at the palace. The Prince of Prussia, the present Emperor of Germany, ordered a performance at Kroll's by more than 200 bandsmen, conducted by the Capellmeister General Wipprecht, before Strauss and his orchestra, when the royal princes, the generals, and the pick of the nobility, attended. On his departure a grand torchlight procession and serenade were given in his honour. On his return to Vienna he was made conductor of the court-balls. In the autumn of 1846 he went to Silesia, and the year following again to Berlin and Hamburg, where he revenged himself for some slights caused by professional jealousy by giving a concert for the poor. He returned to Vienna by Hanover, Magdeburg, and Berlin. During the stormy days of March 1848 he did homage to the spirit of the times in the titles of his pieces, but Strauss was at heart a Viennese of the olden time, a fact which caused him much unpleasantness on his next tour, in 1849, by Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfort, and the Rhine, Brussels, and England. He stayed in London and the provinces from April to July. After a brilliant farewell-concert he was accompanied down the Thames by a fleet of boats, one of which contained a band playing the popular air, 'So leb' denn wohl du stilles Haus,' from Raimund's 'Verschwender.' In the midst of this gay scene poor Strauss was oppressed with a presentiment that he should never revisit London. Shortly after his return to Vienna he was taken ill with scarlet fever, to which he succumbed on the fourth day, Sept. 25, 1849. With him departed a feature of Viennese life, and that the people themselves felt this was shown by the vast concourse at his funeral. A Requiem was performed in his honour on October 11 by his own band, and the Männergesangverein of Vienna, the solos being sung by Mesdames Hasselt and Ernst, Aloys Ander and Staudigl, all from the court opera. Strauss married, in 1824, Anna Streim, daughter of an innkeeper, who bore him five children, Johann, Joseph, Eduard, Anna, and Therese. They separated after eighteen years, on the ground of incompatibility of temper. There are numerous portraits from which an idea can be gathered of Strauss's personal appearance. Though small he was well made and distinguished-looking, with a singularly formed head. His dress was always neat and well chosen. Though lively in company he was naturally rather silent. From the moment he took his violin in his hand he became another man, his whole being seeming to expand with the sounds he drew from it.

As an artist he furnished many pleasant hours to thousands, and high and low combined to do him honour, while great masters like Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Cherubini, acknowledged his talent. He raised dance-music to a higher level than it had ever reached before, and invested his copious melodies with all the charm of brilliant instrumentation. Full of fire, life, and boisterous merriment, they contrasted well with Lanner's softer and more sentimental airs, and must be judged by a totally different standard from that of mere dance-music. As a conductor it was his constant endeavour to mingle classical names in his programmes, and thus to exercise an elevating influence on the masses. His works, published almost entirely by Haslinger, number 251, and comprise 152 waltzes, 24 galops, 6 cotillons and contredanses, 32 quadrilles, 13 polkas, and 18 marches, including some without opus-numbers. The bulk of these have made, so to speak, the tour of the world; each new waltz was in its way an event, not only in Vienna, but wherever the first printed copies penetrated. Innumerable pens, including those of poets, celebrated his works, and the stage itself took part in the general homage, 'Strauss and Lanner' being the title of a one-act comedy by Töpfer, and a three-act piece by Anton Langer.

Of his three sons, the eldest, Johann Strauss II, scarcely less gifted than his father, was born in Vienna, October 25, 1825. In accordance with the father's wish that none of his sons should adopt his own line of life, Johann, after finishing his education at the Gymnasium and Polytechnic Institute, became a clerk in the savings' bank, although he had, with his mother's help, long taken lessons in secret on the violin, and even studied composition with Drechsler. When only six he composed, at Salmannsdorf near Vienna, where the family used to spend the summer, his first waltz, which was performed on his fiftieth birthday as 'Erster Gedanke.' The constraint put upon him became at length unbearable, and on October 15, 1844, he first appeared as a conductor at Dommayer's, at Hietzing, playing compositions of his own, and his father's 'Loreley Walzer.' His success on that occasion decided his future career. After his father's death he incorporated the two bands, and made a tour to the country towns of Austria, Warsaw, and the more important towns of Germany. He also undertook for ten years the direction of the summer concerts in the Petropaulowski Park at St. Petersburg. In 1862 he married the popular singer Henriette ('Jetty') Treffz, and in 1863 became conductor of the court balls.