Johann Strauss ll

AKA:

The Waltz King

Birth Name:

Johann Baptist Strauss II

Birth Date:

October 25, 1825

Birth Place:

Vienna, Austria

Death Date:

June 3, 1899

Place of Death:

Johann Strauss Gasse 4, Wieden, Vienna, Austria

Age:

Cause of Death:

Pleuropneumonia

Cemetery Name:

Der Wiener Zentralfriedhof

Claim to Fame:

Music

Johann Strauss II (also referred to as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger) was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas as well as a renown violinist. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, Strauss ll was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century. Some of Johann Strauss's most famous works include "The Blue Danube", "Kaiser-Walzer" (Emperor Waltz), "Tales from the Vienna Woods", "Frühlingsstimmen", and the "Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka". Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the best known. Strauss was the son of Johann Strauss I and his first wife Maria Anna Streim. Two younger brothers, Josef and Eduard Strauss, also became composers of light music, although they were never as well known as their brother.

Fun Facts

Most of the Strauss ll works that are performed today may once have existed in a slightly different form, as Eduard Strauss destroyed much of the original Strauss orchestral archives in a furnace factory in Vienna’s Mariahilf district in 1907. Eduard, then the only surviving brother of the three, took this drastic precaution after agreeing to a pact between himself and brother Josef that whoever outlived the other was to destroy their works. The measure was intended to prevent the Strauss family’s works from being claimed by another composer. This may also have been fueled by Strauss’s rivalry with another of Vienna’s popular waltz and march composers, Karl Michael Ziehrer.

Also lost to the ages, Eduard Strauss surprisingly wound up the Strauss Orchestra in February 1901 after concerts in 840 cities around the globe, and pawned the instruments. The orchestra’s last violins were destroyed in the firestorm of the Second World War.

Two museums in Vienna are dedicated to Johann Strauss II. His residence in the Praterstrasse, where he lived in the 1860s, is now part of the Vienna Museum. The Strauss Museum is about the whole family, with a focus on Johann Strauss II.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Der Wiener Zentralfriedhof

1110 Wien

Simmeringer Hauptstraße 234, Vienna,

Austria

Europe

Map:

Map of der Wiener Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, Austria

Grave Location:

Gruppe 32 A, Grab Nr. 27

Grave Location Description

You can find the grave very easily if you enter the cemetery through that main entrance, which is called Tor (Gate) 2. Once inside, go straight on, through the middle of the stone arcade ahead of you, towards the large Jugendstil church in the distance. Just keep your eyes on the left hand side to eventually spot the grave of the legendary composer about 100 feet off the road. Nearby neighbors include Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. Across the paved path is a memorial to some guy named Mozart.