Johann Strauss III

Who was Johann Strauss III?

Johann Strauss III was an Austrian composer whose father was Eduard Strauss, whose uncles were Johann Strauss II & Josef Strauss, and whose grandfather was Johann Strauss I. He was unofficially entrusted with the task of upholding his family's tradition after the dissolution of the Strauss Orchestra by his father in 1901. His talents were not fully realised during his lifetime as musical tastes had changed in the Silver Age with more popular composers such as Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus dominating the Viennese musical scene with their operettas, although his uncle, Johann Strauss II, supervised his development as a musician, a fact disputed by Eduard Strauss.

Despite his keen interest in composing, he was better remembered as a conductor. His only stage work, the three-act operetta Katze und Maus, composed in 1898, premiered in Vienna on 23 December 1898, at the Theater an der Wien. Its public reaction bordered on utter dislike, and music critics called for the distraught composer to reassess himself and to appear under a pseudonym, in order not to tarnish the name of his famous relatives.