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 polka at the age of 6, but 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, continued composing, and held his first public soirée in 1844 at the age of nineteen. His father sent two men to try to stop it, but they wound up enjoying the concert so much they carried the son out triumphantly on their shoulders, but only after nineteen encores.

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 4/4. Johann Strauß, Jr. was the master of both.

In opposition to his father, Strauß Jr. sided with the revolutionaries in 1848, at one point being arrested for publicly performing "La Marseillaise." However, his father 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, prompting him to leave the Catholic Church and renounce his Austrian citizenship to do so, whereupon he married a more supportive woman named Adele Deutsch.

Strauß died of pneumonia in 1899.