Joseph Lanner

Over the course of his brief life the Austrian composer and waltz-pioneer Joseph Lanner had a defining effect on the musical culture of biedermeier Vienna. A self-taught violinist from the city's Seventh District, he began playing in local dancebands before forming his own quartet (in partnership with his near-contemporary Johann Strauss I). In 1824, he expanded it into a string orchestra and from 1825 he was in direct competition with Strauss's own newly formed orchestra – though there was sufficient work to go around, and the rivalry seems to have been amicable. In 1829 the Habsburg imperial court appointed Lanner as music director of the Redoutensäle, and in 1831 he assumed musical leadership of the Vienna's Second Militia Regiment. Unlike Strauss, he declined invitations to tour outside of the Austrian Empire, and after his death of typhus at the age of 42, his reputation was eclipsed by Strauss and his sons. But in taking the embryonic waltz out of the wine-gardens and bringing it into society ballrooms, Lanner transformed it into a symbol of Vienna. Revered by composers as varied as Richard Strauss and Fritz Kreisler, Lanner is still beloved in his home city where his dances (such as Die Schönbrunner, Die Mozartisten and Die Romantiker) are played alongside the music of the Strauss family.