The Last Waltz by John Suchet

Author:John Suchet
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783961177
Publisher: Elliott & Thompson

Strauss’s choice of bride this time was as unfortunate as his first choice had been serendipitous. Lili did not realise what she had taken on. Johann Strauss was what we would today call a workaholic. When the creative spark was in him he simply could not stop, and it was in him for much of the time.

We have already seen Strauss himself tell the New York Sun reporter that he always composed at night. Another journalist, a German this time, gives a riveting account of Strauss’s compulsive work ethic, and his extraordinary, and frankly inexplicable, lack of self-confidence. He also describes how utterly essential Jetty was to her husband’s creative process:

Strauss works ‘feverishly’. He composes with the same nervous energy with which he conducts the orchestra. His workroom is everywhere. In a velvet suit and top boots, his hair in a mess, he rushes through his apartments … Madame Strauss sees to it that in every room there is a table with writing implements … Whether Strauss is composing an operetta or a polka, he gets into an indescribable state of nervous excitement. After two or three hours of such work, he is as exhausted as a native bearer … Strauss always believes that his best work is already behind him. He belongs to that breed of artists who spend their lives doubting themselves.

There is a photograph of Strauss, some years later, showing him at his composing desk – standing up!51 This is how he preferred to compose, and it perfectly fits the journalist’s description of him as composing in a fit of nervous energy.

Later still, a portrait by the celebrated German painter Franz von Lehnbach captures to perfection the tortured, almost manic, intensity of Johann Strauss. His eyes are blazing and his jaw is set, as if he is imploring the artist to be done so he can get back to work.52

This was decidedly not the kind of man Lili thought she was taking on. She had anticipated a glamorous life in theatrical circles, attending premieres, soirées, attracting admiring glances as she walked on the arm of the famous Johann Strauss, a man universally admired but belonging to her.

To an extent this happened, at least in the early months of their marriage – Strauss as keen to show off his beautiful young wife as she was ready to play the part. But no one with Strauss’s ferocious appetite for work could behave like that for long.

Some years earlier, with money earned from the eventual success of Die Fledermaus, Jetty had persuaded Strauss to purchase two adjacent plots of land in the Wieden district of Vienna. She knew that, much as he hated the social whirl that accompanied the musical life, he needed to play the role and play it in a manner befitting his status. The villa in Hietzing was neither impressive enough, nor close enough to the city centre, to enable him to do this.

The land bought, Jetty supervised the construction of a luxury mansion – a Stadt-Palais (‘city palace’) – that would meet his every need.

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