View source for Franz Strauss

{{short description|German composer and musician}}
{{Distinguish|text=[[Franz Josef Strauss]], 20th-century politician}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| image = Franz Strauss.jpg
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1822|2|26|df=y}}
| birth_place = [[Parkstein]], Kingdom of Bavaria, German Confederation
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1905|5|31|1822|2|26|df=y}}
| death_place = [[Munich]], German Empire
| occupation = Horn player and composer
| spouse = Elise Seiff (1851–1854)<br />Joséphine Pschorr (1863–death)
| children = 4, including [[Richard Strauss]]
}}

'''Franz Josef Strauss''' (26 February 1822 – 31 May 1905) was a German musician and [[composer]]. He was principal [[Horn (instrument)|horn]] player of the [[Bavarian State Opera|Bavarian Court Opera]] for more than 40 years, a teacher at the [[Hochschule für Musik und Theater München|Royal School of Music]], Munich, a conductor, and accomplished performer on the [[guitar]], [[clarinet]] and [[viola]]

Strauss was the father of the composer [[Richard Strauss]], on whose early musical development he was a great influence, steering his son to the [[Classical period (music)|classical]] and away from modern styles. As a composer, Strauss senior is remembered for his works for the horn. They include two concertos and numerous smaller works.

==Life and career==
Strauss was born in [[Parkstein]], Bavaria. His father, Johann Urban Strauss, was of unsteady character; his children were illegitimate and he left their upbringing to their mother, Maria Anna Kunigunde Walter.<ref name=trenner>Trenner, Franz, trans. Bernhard Brüchle. [http://hornplayer.net/archive/a62.html "Der Vater – Franz Strauss"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111007081528/http://www.hornplayer.net/archive/a62.html |date=7 October 2011 }}, ''[[Neue Zeitschrift für Musik]]'', 1955, reproduced at hornplayer.net, accessed 13 September 2011</ref> She was a member of a large and musical family, and her brother (Johann) Georg Walter undertook the boy's musical education. Georg taught Strauss to play the clarinet, guitar and a range of brass instruments. At the age of nine, Strauss was taken on as a pupil and player by another uncle, Franz Michael Walter, a military bandmaster.<ref name=trenner /> Georg's son [[Benno Walter]] was later to become the first violin teacher of Franz's son Richard and dedicatee of some of his works.

At the age of 15, through the influence of George Walter, Strauss was appointed to the private orchestra of [[Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria|Duke Max]] in Munich, where he remained for ten years.<ref name=trenner /> He gradually found that of all the instruments he could play, the horn suited him best. He started to compose for that instrument. Among his earliest compositions were a Romance, ''Les Adieux'', and a Fantasy on [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]]'s ''Sehnsuchtswalzer'', both for horn and orchestra with alternative versions for horn and piano.<ref>Pizka, Hans [http://www.pizka.de/fstrau4.htm "Franz Strauss' compositions"], ''Alles über das Horn'', accessed 13 September 2011</ref>

In 1847, Strauss became a member of the orchestra of the [[Bavarian State Opera|Bavarian Court Opera]].<ref name=odm>[http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/book/omo_t237 "Strauss, Franz Joseph"], ''The Oxford Dictionary of Music'', accessed 13 September 2011 {{subscription required}}</ref> In May 1851 he married Elise Maria Seiff, with whom he had a son and a daughter. The son died aged 10 months in 1852, and in 1854, Strauss's wife and daughter died of cholera.<ref>Schuh, p. 9</ref> He lived a single life until 1863, when he married Josephine Pschorr (1837–1910), the daughter of a wealthy Munich brewer.<ref name=grove>Gilliam, Bryan and Charles Youmans. [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40117pg1 "Strauss, Richard"], ''[[Grove Music Online]]'', Oxford Music Online, accessed 13 September 2011 {{subscription required}}</ref><ref name=tempo>Trenner, Franz and Gertrude Simon. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/942722 "Richard Strauss and Munich"], ''Tempo'', New Series, No. 69 (Summer, 1964), pp. 5–14 {{subscription required}}</ref> They had two children: [[Richard Strauss|Richard Georg]], born 1864, and Berta Johanna, born 1867.<ref name=trenner />

Strauss's first horn concerto was premiered, with the composer playing the horn part, in 1865 and he remained greatly in demand as a soloist.<ref name=tempo /> The conductor [[Hans von Bülow]] called him "the [[Joseph Joachim|Joachim]] of the horn".<ref name=tempo /> In 1871, he was appointed professor at the [[Hochschule für Musik und Theater München|Royal School of Music]]; he was given the rank of Kammermusiker of the Bavarian court in 1873.

[[File:Richard-and-Franz-Strauss.jpg|thumb|left|Franz Strauss, right, with his son Richard in 1901]]
Strauss's musical preferences were strongly [[Classical period (music)|classical]]; he loved the music of [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]] above all other, and also particularly admired [[Joseph Haydn|Haydn]], [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], and [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]].<ref name=trenner /> He was not in sympathy with the new music of [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]] which his sovereign and employer, [[Ludwig II of Bavaria]], assiduously promoted with productions at the Court Opera.<ref name=grove /> Strauss's antipathy to modern music influenced the early development of his son, Richard, who began as a composer in a traditional vein, not finding himself drawn to modernism until he had left paternal influence behind him during his time at [[Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich|Munich University]].<ref name=grove />

Despite his personal distaste for Wagner, both as a man and a musician, Strauss's strict professionalism drove him to devote all his technical mastery to the important horn solos in Wagner's operas. He led the horn section in the premieres of ''[[Tristan und Isolde]],'' ''[[Das Rheingold]],'' and ''[[Die Walküre]].'' Wagner said, "Strauss is a detestable fellow but when he blows his horn one cannot sulk with him."<ref name=trenner /> At the conductor [[Hermann Levi]]'s invitation, Strauss played in the premiere of ''[[Parsifal]]'' at [[Bayreuth Festival|Bayreuth]] in 1882.<ref>Schuh, p. 6</ref> After a bad attack of influenza, Strauss was unable to play the horn for 18 months, but continued to play in the Court Opera orchestra as a [[viola|violist]], in which capacity he took part in the first performance in Munich of Wagner's ''[[Tannhäuser (opera)|Tannhäuser]]''.<ref name=trenner />

In 1875 Strauss was elected conductor of the amateur orchestra, the "Wilde Gung'l", a post he held for 21 years.<ref name=grove /> Among the players was his son, who learned the practicalities of orchestration there, and wrote some of his first compositions for the orchestra.<ref name=grove />

Strauss retired from the opera orchestra in 1889, though he continued his conducting and taught for some years thereafter. He died in Munich at the age of 83.<ref name=trenner />

==Notes==
{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

==References==
* {{cite book|last=Schuh|first=Willi|year=1982|title=Richard Strauss: A Chronicle of the Early Years, 1864–1898|location=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-24104-9}}

==External links==
{{wikiquote}}
*{{IMSLP|id=Strauss, Franz}}
*{{MutopiaComposer|StraussF}}
*{{DNB-Portal|117311901|TYP=Werke von und über}}
*[http://www.hornsociety.org/en/ihs-people/past-greats/128-franz-strauss The IHS Franz Strauss biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110407040425/http://www.hornsociety.org/en/ihs-people/past-greats/128-franz-strauss |date=7 April 2011 }}
*[http://www.pizka.de/fstrau1.htm Biography]
*[https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/boyden-strauss.html Boyden excerpt about Franz Strauss from book about Richard Strauss]
*[http://hornplayer.net/archive/a62.html Hornplayer.net biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111007081528/http://www.hornplayer.net/archive/a62.html |date=7 October 2011 }}

{{Portal bar|Classical music}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strauss, Franz}}
[[Category:1822 births]]
[[Category:1905 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century German classical composers]]
[[Category:19th-century German male musicians]]
[[Category:20th-century German male musicians]]
[[Category:German classical horn players]]
[[Category:German male classical composers]]
[[Category:German Romantic composers]]
[[Category:Musicians from the Kingdom of Bavaria]]