Johann Strauss Jr. was born on the 25th of October 1825, as
the first son of Johann Strauss Sr.
His father, a famous musician himself, forbid him a musical
career. But Johann Strauss Jr. cared more for his violin lessons,
than his schoolwork. In 1844 he performed his first concert
at the Dommayer in Hietzing, a Viennese suburb. He was successful
and soon rose to be the most dangerous competitor to his father.
When his father died in 1849, Strauss Jr. had already established
himself as the Viennese Waltz King. He conquered big
crowds of fans with his tours through Europe and America and
trigged a world wide Strauss hysteria.
Jaque Offenbach's operettas inspired Johann Strauss Jr. to
drift towards stagework himself categorizing his work as comical
operas. His first operetta "Die Fledermaus"
had its premiere in 1871, and in 1874 he released "Der
Zigeunerbaron".
He was married three times, he wrote 17 operettas and an uncountable
amount of waltzes and his "Schöne Blaue Donau"
is kind of an unoffizial anthem for Austria to this day.
