Johann Strauss the Younger (1888)
Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Born and raised in the heart of the Austrian Empire, Johann Strauß, Jr. was the son of a prominent Viennese musician (obviously also named Johann Strauß.) The younger Strauß showed an early interest in music, composing his first waltz at the age of 6. His father tried to discourage him from pursuing a career in music. The boy secretly took lessons from a violinist in his father's orchestra and continued composing.

The most popular forms of music in Vienna at the time were waltzes, or stately dances in 3/4 time, and polkas, upbeat dances in 2/4. Johann Strauß, Jr. was the master of both.

His relationship with his father turned into one of intense artistic and political rivalry. When the 19-year-old Strauß held his first public concert in 1844, his father sent two men to try to stop it. According to legend, they wound up enjoying the concert so much they carried the son out triumphantly on their shoulders, but only after the audience demanded several encores.

In opposition to his father, Strauß Jr. sided with the revolutionaries in 1848, at one point being arrested for publicly performing "La Marseillaise." When the revolutions were crushed by Austrian forces, his father composed the famous "Radetzky March" to celebrate the general who put them down.

Strauß Sr. died the following year, and Strauß Jr. merged his orchestra with his father's. With his father dead and the revolutions a failure, Strauß began writing patriotic songs to curry imperial favor. His career began to advance, even as his health declined; he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1853 and took a long while to recover.

In 1862, he married a singer named Henrietta Treffz, and the following year Strauß was appointed Hofballmusikdirektor or "Master of Court Balls" for Emperor Franz Joseph. His fame eclipsed his father's, and he even took his orchestra on a concert tour of the United States in 1872, which gave him worldwide renown.

Henrietta Strauß died in 1878, and Strauß married an actress named Angelika Dittrich. This marriage was not a happy one, and he sought a divorce in 1887. To do so, he had to renounce both his Roman Catholicism and his Austrian citizenship, becoming a Lutheran and becoming a citizen of the Protestant Saxe-Coburg-Gotha so that he could marry a more supportive woman named Adele Deutsch.

Strauß died of pneumonia in 1899.