Suchet - The Last Waltz

Chapter One
City of Dreams

Chapter Two
Caf Culture

Chapter Three
Conquering Paris

Chapter Four
By Royal Appointment

Chapter Five
A Family Conspiracy

Chapter Six
Good Morning Strauss Son!

Chapter Seven
Radetzky Marches Out of Step

Chapter Eight
A New Waltz King

Chapter Nine
Pepi Joins the Family Firm

Chapter Ten
In Russia and in Love

Chapter Eleven
Tying the Knot

Chapter Twelve
The Strauss Family in Mourning

Chapter Thirteen
Strauss Turns His Hand to Operetta

Chapter Fourteen
Johann Strauss Tastes Failure

Chapter Fifteen
To the Altar Again

Chapter Sixteen
Tragedy in the Imperial Royal Family

Chapter Seventeen
The Emperor Waltz

Chapter Eighteen
An Assassins Knife Breaks the Emperors Heart

Chapter Nineteen
A Final Fledermaus and Johann Strauss Bids Farewell

Chapter Twenty
Eduards Flames of Revenge

Chapter Twenty-one
A New Century and a New Vienna

Chapter Twenty-two
The Nazis Rewrite History

Chapter Twenty-three
Admired by the Greats

The name of Johann Strauss, and the sound of his music, are synonymous with Vienna. They are Vienna. Johann Strauss the Younger, the Waltz King, may have been dead for over a century, but there is not a night of the week when his music cannot be heard somewhere in Vienna. And wherever in the world it is heard, it is the image of the city of Vienna and of its river the Danube that are instantly conjured up.

So beautiful, melodious and instantly memorable are the pieces he wrote, that you could easily believe that he, his father and brothers prolific and successful composers all lived in perfect harmony, both musically and otherwise, and that the city of their birth was as peaceful and content as their music.

The truth was very different. The Strauss family was riven with tension, rivalry and jealousy. The founder of the dynasty, Johann Strauss senior, deserted his family. His three sons worked literally to the point of exhaustion one killing himself through overwork, another constantly ill with the strain of composing, the third ultimately burning thousands of family manuscripts in a fit of jealousy.

And the Vienna in which they lived? A revolution on the streets brought to the throne an emperor who would lose his only son to suicide and his wife to murder. In the second half of the nineteenth century the once great Habsburg Empire would dwindle in power and influence, dwarfed by the might and militarism of Prussia.

Through it all the Viennese would drink champagne and waltz to the music of the Strauss dynasty, as they hurtled towards the First World War and oblivion.

This book tells the extraordinary story of the most prolific and popular family of composers in musical history, and of the turbulent city in which they lived.

Note on Sources:

The principal source of quoted historical material, as well as many other facts pertaining to the lives of the Strauss family, is Peter Kemps excellent book The Strauss Family: Portrait of a Musical Dynasty. First published in 1985 and still the most comprehensive and authoritative single-volume work on the Strauss family, this book has been an invaluable help in the researching and writing of The Last Waltz. I cannot recommend it highly enough as the starting point for anyone wishing to learn more about this extraordinary family.

T here is a saying in Vienna: When one eye cries, the other one laughs. Another has it that Things are desperate but not serious.

Vienna is a city of contradictions, as the Viennese themselves know well, and you need look no further than its music to prove it.

The single most famous piece of music to emerge from Vienna, a piece that encapsulates the spirit of the city, that is heard without fail at every Vienna New Years Day concert, that from the opening of shimmering violins says This is Vienna, is named for its river.

I can think of no other great capital city that has a universally known and loved piece of music named for its river. Not the Seine in Paris, the Thames in London, the Tiber in Rome, the Vltava in Prague, the Spree in Berlin, the Vistula in Warsaw, the Moskva in Moscow.