Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

STRAUSS STRAUSS 715
14, 1804. As a child he showed talent for
music, and a love for the violin, but his parents,
small innkeepers, apprenticed him to a bookbinder,
from whom he ran away. A friend met
him, took him back, and persuaded the parents
to entrust him with the boy's education as a
musician.
With the son of this benefactor the
little Strauss learnt the violin from Polysohansky,
afterwards studying harmony and instrumentation
with Seyfried. He soon played the
viola in string-quartets at private houses, and
at fifteen entered Pamer's orchestra at the
'
Sperl,' a favourite place of amusement in the
Leopoldstadt. At that time the excellent
playing of Lanner and the brothers Drahanek
was exciting attention ; Strauss offered himself,
and was accepted as fourth in the little band.
Soon, however, their numbers had to be increased
to meet their numerous engagements,
and Strauss acted as deputy-conductor till 1825,
when he and Lanner parted. In the Carnival
of 1826 Strauss and his little orchestra of
fourteen performers appeared in the hall of
the
'
Swan ' in the Rossau suburb, and took
the hearts of the people by storm. His op. 1,
the Tauberl-Walzer ' ' (Haslinger), was speedily
followed by others, the most successful being
the 'Kattenbriickeu-Walzer,' called after the
Hall of that name. Strauss was next invited
to return with his now enlarged orchestra to
the 'Sperl,' and with such success as to induce
the proprietor, Scherzer, to engage him for six
years, which virtually founded the reputation
of the ' Sperl ' and its orchestral conductor.
Meantime Strauss was appointed Capellmeister
of the iirst Biirger-regiment, and entrusted with
the music at the court fetes and balls. As his
band was daily in request at several places at
once, he increased the number to over 200,
from which he formed a select body for playing
at concerts, in music of the highest class. He
now began to make tours in the provinces and
abroad, visiting Pesth in 1833 ; Berlin, Leipzig,
and Dresden in 1834 ; "West Germany in 1835 ;
and North Geimany, Holland, Belgium, and
the Rhine, in 1836. His next tour began in
Oct. 1837, and embraced Strasburg, Paris,
Rouen, Havre, Belgium, London, and the
larger towns of Great Britain ; he then returned
to Belgium, and back to England and Scotland.
His success in Paris was unprecedented, notwithstanding
the formidable rivaby of Musard and
Dufresne, with the former of whom he wisely
joined for a series of thirty concerts. A disagreeable
intrigue nearly made him throw up
the journey to England, but it was only there
that his profits at all remunerated him for his
enormous expenses. In London he played at
seventy-two concerts, and at innumerable balls
and fgtes given in honour of the Queen's coronation
(June 28, 1838). On his second visit he had
great difficulty in keeping his band from dispersing,
so weary were they of continual travelling.
He managed, however, to go again to Birmingham,
Liverpool, and Dublin, besides visiting
Reading, Cheltenham, Worcester, Leicester,
Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield. At Sheffield
his receipts were small, and at Halifax still less,
but when the amateurs of both places discovered
the kind of musician they had been negleeting,
a deputation was sent with post-horses to Leeds
to bring him back again. He was taken ill at
Derby, and only reached Vienna with great
difficulty in Dec. 1838. His first reappearance
at the ' Sperl ' was quite a popular
f^te. 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
Cameval-Quadrille ' (op. 124). Henceforward,
except waltzes—among which the 'Donaulieder'
(op. 127) are stiU played—he composed only
quadrilles, polkaS, and marches, including the
favourite 'Radetzky-March.' On April 16,
1843, he and the band of his old Biirger-regiment
accompanied the body of his old colleague
Lanner to the grave. An excursion to Olmiitz,
Troppau, etc., in the autumn of 1844, was
succeeded in the next autumn by one to Dresden,
Magdeburg, and Berlin, where he was immensely
fSted. The king appeared in person at KroU's
Garden, and invited Strauss to play at the
palace. The Prince of Prussia, aftei-wards the
Emperor William I., 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 weregiven 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
retumeid 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
torn-, 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.