The Strauss dynasty
The Strauss Dynasty is an Austrian film biography in six parts from 1989. The career of Johann Strauss (father) (the composer of the Radetzky March ) and his son Johann Strauss (son) ("Schani"), the composer is described of the waltz on the beautiful blue Danube , who, despite his father's resistance, also became a musician and competed with his father as a waltz composer.
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First part
Johann Strauss (father) befriends Joseph Lanner at one of his concerts. The superficial dance music of the aristocratic balls gave Johann Strauss the idea of founding an orchestra with Lanner.
Immediately both get a job with the inn owner Streim. While his daughter Anna tied up with Strauss and Lanner at the same time, the businessman Karl Friedrich Hirsch was able to convince the two musicians to make music at the same time in his and home's inn.
Anna becomes pregnant and marries Strauss; at the wedding Lanner breaks away from Strauss. Despite his professional success, Strauss was plagued by fears about the future. When Anna gives birth to their son Johann ("Schani"), Strauss prefers to play with the Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini , who is enthusiastic about his music.
Little Schani developed his first musical inclinations, while his father was soon more successful than Lanner. During a cholera epidemic, Strauss and Hirsch are planning a concert in Schönbrunn to draw the emperor's attention to his music. Despite his absence, the concert was a success. Strauss chooses a waltz queen from the audience, the young Emilie Trampusch. A troop of the emperor dissolves the concert even with the use of force; On their escape, Strauss and Emilie kiss.
After Prince Metternich 's appointment as court ball music director , Strauss immediately sent Strauss on a concert tour to England for the coronation of Queen Victoria . In return, he promised Strauss that he would find a post at the imperial court for him.
Second part
Because his lover Emilie Trampusch is giving birth to a son, Strauss decides, despite the homesickness of his orchestra, to travel on to France. When the journey to New York is to be continued, Strauss is abandoned by his musicians.
Resigned, Strauss and Hirsch return to Vienna, where Strauss sees his grown-up son and his brothers again. Strauss is unable to work, while Anna does not know how to support her family. Frustrated, Strauss forbids his sons to become musicians in order to spare them the disappointments he had to experience himself. When the musicians return to Strauss, at Anna's insistence he continues his work.
Strauss moves in with Emilie, but only wants to pay his family support if his sons abide by his music ban. For this reason, Schani attends commercial school, but secretly turns back to music with the support of his mother. He falls in love with Lanner's daughter Kathi, who organizes violin lessons for him with her father. When Johann Strauss found out about the lessons, Anna forbade any further interference from her husband and sent her son to take composition lessons with the organist Joseph Drechsler ; Schani earns the necessary money at night in the factory. However, Schani does not feel at home in the turner's fugitive lessons and, contrary to his mother's plans, would rather compose waltzes and found an orchestra with his friend Gustav Levi.
Lanner dies unexpectedly; Due to Prince Metternich's influence, Strauss becomes his successor.
After initial difficulties, Schani gets permission to found an orchestra with the help of his mother, who de facto signs as his guardian. Although Johann Strauss threatens to boycott all café owners who let Schani play with them, Schani celebrates a successful debut at Café Dommayer . Johann Strauss congratulates his son and offers him a tour together; Schani's mother vehemently refuses.
third part
Prince Metternich worries about public order because of the rivalry between father and son. When a young woman dies in a dispute between the supporters of father and son, Schani plays at her funeral despite the official prohibition. Prince Metternich urges Strauss to end the conflict with his son, but then, at Hirsch's suggestion, sends Schani to Romania as a cultural ambassador.
The rebels of the revolution of 1848/49 celebrate Shani as heroes because he opposed the authorities at the funeral; he plays the Marseillaise for her . After his return, Schani reports to the army. While the revolution is suppressed by Field Marshal Radetzky , Schani and Levi are arrested for participating in the revolution. Prince Metternich is deposed and Emperor Ferdinand I abdicates; Succeeded by his nephew Franz Joseph I. .
Johann Strauss had an affair with the singer Jetty Treffz , the lover of the banker Moritz von Todesco ; in Vienna he performs the Radetzky March in Radetzky's honor . While Anna is campaigning for Schani's release, Johann Strauss falls ill with scarlet fever . Schani is allowed to visit his terminally ill father, but is too late: Emilie Trampusch has gone and has left Johann Strauss's naked body in the house.
After his funeral, Johann Strauss (son) reunites his orchestra with that of his father. A little later he falls in love with Karoline, who is about to have a relationship with Schani's brother Josef. When his application for court ball music director was rejected, he reluctantly went on tour to Russia at the urging of his mother; The Russian Prince Alexander Nikolajewitsch Gribow gave him the opportunity to do so.
fourth part
Johann Strauss was soon able to write in his letters to his mother how successful his music was in Russia and how popular women would adore him - he already lives in a liaison with the aristocratic daughter Olga - but also reports on the dark side of the raging Crimean War in Russia . A little later he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus by the Tsar .
Olga's parents, on the other hand, try to prevent their daughter's improper relationship with Johann. When he secretly wants to take Olga with him to Austria, she tries, driven by inner voices, to shoot herself and Strauss; However, Strauss flees. The tsar promises that Olga will be looked after; Strauss returns to Vienna, where thanks to his success he gives one concert after the other.
When Strauss has to go to the sanatorium for three months because of overhaul, his brother Josef - who works as an engineer - takes on Johann's replacement at the insistence of his mother. Since Johann's stay in the sanatorium resulted in a lack of new waltzes, Josef began to compose; a little later brother Eduard also turned to music. When Josef also collapses due to overwork, Eduard takes over the orchestra.
Johann and Jetty Treffz start a relationship and get married despite the protests of Johann's mother, who Jetty considers a bad wife. Shortly after the wedding, Johann was appointed court ball music director. Anna Strauss reacts in horror when Johann wants to devote himself more to composing.
Part five
While the Strauss brothers are in dispute over contract negotiations and Johann's choice of spouse, Austria experiences a defeat in the German war against Prussia in 1866 . Johann was given the task of setting a poem by police inspector Joseph Weyl to music to lighten the mood in the population. While Johann despairs of the silly text, Levi becomes his publisher.
Since Josef is in financial difficulties, Johann enables him to go on a concert tour to Russia with some of his musicians. When he takes the rest of the orchestra to France, Eduard reacts angrily that there are no musicians left for him. Johann celebrated a success at the Paris World Exhibition in 1867 when he performed his poem setting, the waltz On the beautiful blue Danube , without text.
Since Johann reacted cautiously to an offer from the impresario Charles Gilmore to host an American tour, Jetty informed him only in America that he had already received a telegram in France with the news of his mother's death. Johann is shocked by her approach.
In Vienna, his joy about being awarded the Salvator Medal and the sale of a million copies of the Beautiful Blue Danube is overshadowed by the cancer death of his brother Josef; on the deathbed Eduard accuses Johann of having caused Josef's death during the trip to Russia.
Jetty tried several times to encourage Johann to write operettas; Only when Ewa Wesseli, a singer of the theater, presented Johann with a libretto, did Johann compose Die Fledermaus . Jetty is jealous when an affair develops between Johann and Ewa.
The great success of the “Fledermaus” is overshadowed by allegations that Johann published an unknown work by his deceased brother as his own. His marriage is threatened with mischief when Jetty's now grown son shows up and demands the payment of his gambling debts; otherwise he would like to make public that he is the son of Johann Strauss (father).
In the meantime, Johann makes the acquaintance of Johannes Brahms , who as a music expert wants to publicly refute the plagiarism allegations against Johann, since his cheerful music is completely different from that of the calculating engineer Josef Strauss. His joy about it is tarnished by Jetty's death; through a letter from her he learns the truth about her son.
Sixth part
Shortly after Jetty's death, Strauss married the actress Angelika Dittrich. But Angelica throws her husband's money out the window; a little later, her attempt to surprise her husband with daring, self-painted pictures fails. During an argument, Angelika miscarries; Due to rumors that she was having an affair, Johann divorced her and, on the advice of family lawyer Dr. Halmi to Hungary. There, when Angelika does not want to consent to the divorce, he finds help from Dr. Halmi's widowed daughter-in-law Adele, who has opened a law firm in Budapest. At a gypsy festival, a fortune teller predicts an imminent wedding for both of them.
After Angelika blocked Johann's accounts, Adele took over his financial affairs. Angelika subjects both of them to a liaison, whereupon Dr. Halmi becomes her lawyer and Adele discharges from his office. Despite Levi's request, Eduard refuses to help Johann financially by performing his music.
While working on his new operetta Der Zigeunerbaron , Johann converted to Protestantism and became a citizen of the German duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in order to divorce Angelika and marry Adele; Eduard is his successor as court ball music director.
Despite Johann's new citizenship, the Viennese respond enthusiastically to the Gypsy baron . Johann's plan to bring out a complete edition of his works fails because of Edward's refusal to hand over the music he has archived. On the occasion of the award of the Knightly Order by Franz Joseph I , Johann dedicated his Kaiser Waltz to the Emperor .
On June 3, 1899, Johann, sitting in an armchair, thinks back to his eventful life and dies. The musicians of Edward's band sing the Danube waltz full of sadness ; Eduard himself, crying, burns his archive in his oven.
Web links
- The Strauss dynasty in the Internet Movie Database (English)