Johann Strauss I

Johann Strauss I, born in Vienna in 1804, was the founder of the Strauss dynasty and, with Joseph Lanner, one of the creators of the classical Viennese waltz. Of humble origins, he learned the violin and played in dance ensembles, joining and then leaving Lanner’s orchestra to form his own in 1825. Through tireless touring across Europe, reaching as far as Britain, where he played for Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838, he carried the Viennese waltz to international fame and built a thriving musical business. He opposed his sons’ musical ambitions, hoping they would avoid the insecurity of a performer’s life, but Johann II defied him and became a rival. The elder Strauss’s own fame today rests above all on the Radetzky-Marsch of 1848, written in honour of the Austrian field marshal and now the traditional, hand-clapping finale of the New Year’s Concert. He died of scarlet fever in Vienna in 1849, leaving a legacy his sons would magnify into a golden age.