Abstract
The Strauss dynasty has been famously associated with a generic musical nostalgia for the ballroom glamour of old Vienna for so long that much previous scholarship has necessarily focused on disentangling the father and three sons who bore the same name, establishing them as individuals rather than interchangeable contributors to a single legend. This book is therefore a timely assessment of this unique family in all the glory of its complex interrelationships as a whole, re-assembling a wealth of details from a wide range of sources, as well as the author’s own formidable track record of original research. The result is a compelling narrative, enriched by a meticulous analysis of the dynamics between the principal individuals and their wider families.
This narrative is also deeply embedded in the social history of Vienna, and includes, among other things, an indispensable inventory of the connections between so much of the music and the events and politics of the day. The account of the Strauss family’s continuing struggle for recognition in a musical landscape where commercial opportunism jostled side-by-side with relics of imperial patronage such as the courtly post of kaiserlich-königlicher Hofballmusikdirektor [royal-imperial court director of ball music] – which three of them held but two of them later renounced – is fascinating and eminently readable. Their professional and personal relations with other musicians in Vienna are also brought to life, with some surprising insights along the way such as their genuine and continuing friendships with both Brahms and Wagner, who are so often cast as musical and personal opposites. More prosaically, the account of the logistics of touring abroad while still maintaining an active presence in Vienna that was critical to their preferment there is an invaluable insight into the practicalities of nineteenth-century musical life. As well as providing a rich context, the book does not fight shy of discussing the music itself, and while the imaginations of some non-specialists may be stretched by ‘the distinctive sound of a dominant ninth chord’, the great majority of these allusions are exemplary in their communication of musical means and effects in such a way as to render them accessible to the general reader and draw them in.
As the title makes clear, the main narrative of the book is situated in ‘Habsburg Vienna’, the courtly and civilised world familiar from so many studies of the classic composers it nurtured, from Mozart and Beethoven through Schubert to Brahms and Bruckner. At the same time, though, the Strauss family were also genuinely popular musicians, who in the older Johann’s time at least were in constant personal demand as bandleaders in ballrooms, but even in their heyday they were viewed by some as interlopers when they first appeared at the classical music temple of the Musikverein concert hall. This was a world of ephemeral performance, but it was still as much the medium through which the Strauss family established their audience and reputation with the Viennese public as was their printed sheet music. The existence of this other world is acknowledged here in the younger Johann’s aspirations towards a more ‘socially exclusive’ career, while his deliberate distancing himself from the old Sperl ballroom in the 1860s because of its increasingly scandalous reputation is also clearly noted. However, behind this lies a long history of the Sperl having been the family home turf for decades previously; it was still a place where Josef and Eduard Strauss were playing as late as 1867. There is no mention either of Schwender’s Colosseum, one of a new breed of grand entertainment palaces where the Strauss orchestras were intensively engaged in the 1860s, nor of their interactions with other popular musicians in Vienna. The younger Johann was a keen devotee of the uniquely Viennese ‘Schrammel’ ensembles, and various Strauss orchestras played alongside the increasingly fashionable Hungarian ‘Gypsy-bands’ at the Sperl and the Colosseum, as well as at high-profile functions in Vienna and St Petersburg. Their engagement with this ‘other side of Vienna’ is, however, a more elusive aspect of their musical lives and an avenue for investigation along different lines. This book remains a foundational landmark in research into the compositions and official relationships that shaped the musical lives of this unique dynasty.