Think of the Blue Danube, think of Johann Strauss, and you think of the waltz. In your mind you see swirling couples, billowing dresses and tailcoats. You see a thin figure on the podium, wavy haired and moustachioed, swaying as he leads his orchestra from the violin.

Surprising, then, to discover that behind the beautiful melodies was a family riven with tension. Johann Strauss senior tried everything he could to stop his son becoming a musician. When his son announced his first concert, the father planted allies in the audience to boo.

But there was nothing he could do to stop Johann Strauss junior from eclipsing him. But why did the father’s one enduring hit, The Radetsky March, end up contributing to his early death – in the bedroom of his mistress?

As Johann junior’s fame grew, so did the jealousy and tensions with his brothers, leading his youngest brother to burn hundreds of manuscripts.

All this, set against a Vienna in terminal decline, waltzing to war and oblivion, ruled by an Emperor who lived through tragedy after tragedy. His son and heir committed joint suicide with his mistress at Mayerling. His wife, the beautiful Empress Elizabeth, who hated court ritual, did not get on with the Imperial royal family, was assassinated – a beautiful consort who hated court ritual and died a violent death, almost a mirror image of our Princess Diana. And the Emperor himself, longing for death to release him, living into the 20th century and witnessing the agonising death of his own Habsburg dynasty in the First World War.

For further information contact John's agent,
David Foster Management >>