Franz Strauss

Franz Josef Strauss (26 February 1822 – 31 May 1905) was a German musician and composer. He was principal horn player of the Bavarian Court Opera for more than 40 years, a teacher at the 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 and away from modern styles. As a composer, Strauss senior is remembered for his works for the horn. They include a concerto 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. 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.

In 1847, Strauss became a member of the orchestra of the Bavarian Court Opera. 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. He lived a single life until 1863, when he married Josephine Pschorr (1837–1910), the daughter of a wealthy Munich brewer. They had two children: Richard Georg, born 1864, and Berta Johanna, born 1867. 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 violist, in which capacity he took part in the first performance in Munich of Wagner's Tannhäuser.

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

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.