Not to be confused with the similarly-pronounced Elba.

Elbe
Czech: Labe, German: Elbe, Low German: Ilv or Elv
River
The Elbe (Labe) near Děčín, Czech Republic
Countries	Czech Republic, Germany
Regions	Hradec Králové, Pardubice, Central Bohemia, Ústí nad Labem, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein
Tributaries
- left	Vltava, Ohře, Mulde, Saale, Ohre, Ilmenau, Luhe, Oste
- right	Jizera, Schwarze Elster, Havel, Elde, Bille, Alster
Cities	Pardubice, Ústí nad Labem, Dresden, Meißen, Wittenberg, Dessau, Magdeburg, Hamburg, Stade, Cuxhaven
Source	Bílé Labe
- location	Krkonoše, Czech Republic
- elevation	1,386 m (4,547 ft)
- coordinates	50°46′32.59″N 15°32′10.14″E / 50.7757194°N 15.53615°E / 50.7757194; 15.53615
Mouth	North Sea
- elevation	0 m (0 ft)
- coordinates	53°55′20″N 8°43′20″E / 53.92222°N 8.72222°E / 53.92222; 8.72222
Length	1,091 km (678 mi)
Basin	148,268 km2 (57,247 sq mi)
Discharge	mouth
- average	711 m3/s (25,109 cu ft/s)
- max	1,232 m3/s (43,508 cu ft/s)
- min	493 m3/s (17,410 cu ft/s)
Discharge elsewhere (average)
- Děčín	303 m3/s (10,700 cu ft/s)
The Elbe watershed
Tributaries of the Elbe

The Elbe (Czech:  Labe (help·info); German: Elbe; Low German: Ilv) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (Czech Republic), then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg. Its total length is 1,094 kilometres (680 mi).^[1]

The Elbe's major tributaries include the Vltava, Saale, Havel, Mulde, Schwarze Elster, and Ohre rivers.^[1]

The Elbe River basin, comprising the Elbe and its tributaries, has a catchment area of 148,268 square kilometres (57,247 sq mi), the fourth largest in Europe. The basin spans four countries, with its largest parts in Germany (65.5%) and the Czech Republic (33.7%). Much smaller parts lie in Austria (0.6%) and Poland (0.2%). The basin is inhabited by 24.5 million people.^[1]

Course[link]

In the Czech Republic[link]

The Elbe rises at an elevation of about 1,400 metres (4,593 ft) in the Krkonoše (also known as Giant Mountains or in German as Riesengebirge) on the northwest borders of the Czech Republic. Of the numerous small streams whose waters compose the infant river, the most important is the Bílé Labe, or White Elbe. After plunging down the 60 metres (197 ft) of the Labský vodopád, or Elbe Falls, the latter stream unites with the steeply torrential Malé Labe, and thereafter the united stream of the Elbe pursues a southerly course, emerging from the mountain glens at and continuing on to Pardubice, where it turns sharply to the west. At Kolín some 43 kilometres (27 mi) further on, it bends gradually towards the north-west.

At the village of Káraný, a little above Brandýs nad Labem it picks up the Jizera.

At Mělník its stream is more than doubled in volume by the Vltava, or Moldau, a river which winds northwards through Bohemia. Although upstream from the confluence Vltava is longer (434 kilometres (270 mi) against 294 kilometres (183 mi)), has larger discharge and larger drainage basin, due to historical reasons (at the confluence the Elbe flows through prominent wide valley while the Vltava, flowing into the valley, meets the Elbe at almost a right angle, so it appears as a tributary) the river continues as Elbe.

Some distance lower down, at Litoměřice, the waters of the Elbe are tinted by the reddish Ohře (Eger). Thus augmented, and swollen into a stream 140 metres (459 ft) wide, the Elbe carves a path through the basaltic mass of the České Středohoří, churning its way through a deep, narrow rocky gorge.

In Germany[link]

Shortly after crossing the Czech-German frontier, and passing through the sandstone defiles of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, the stream assumes a north-westerly direction, which on the whole it preserves right to the North Sea.

The river rolls through Dresden and finally, beyond Meißen, enters on its long journey across the North German Plain passing along the former border of East Germany, touching Torgau, Wittenberg, Dessau, Magdeburg, Wittenberge, and Hamburg on the way, and taking on the waters of the Mulde and Saale from the west, and those of the Schwarze Elster, Havel and Elde from the east. In its northern section both banks of the Elbe are characterised by flat, very fertile marshlands (Elbe Marshes), former flood plains of the Elbe now diked.

At Magdeburg there is a viaduct, the Magdeburg Water Bridge, that carries a canal and its shipping traffic, over the Elbe and its banks, allowing shipping traffic to pass under it unhindered.

The middle Elbe in the north German lowland near the village of Gorleben. In this section, the river had been part of the Iron Curtain between West and East Germany during the Cold War. For that reason, the riverbanks even today look relatively natural and undeveloped.

Soon the Elbe reaches Hamburg. Within the city-state the Elbe has a number of branch streams, such as Dove Elbe, Gose Elbe, Köhlbrand, Northern Elbe (Norderelbe), Reiherstieg, Southern Elbe (Süderelbe). Some of which have been disconnected for vessels from the main stream by dikes. In 1390 the Gose Elbe (literally in English: shallow Elbe) was separated from the main stream by a dike connecting the two then-islands of Kirchwerder and Neuengamme. The Dove Elbe (literally in English: deaf Elbe) was diked off in 1437/38 at Gammer Ort. These hydraulic engineering works were carried out to protect marshlands from inundation, and to improve the water supply of the Port of Hamburg. After the heavy inundation by the North Sea flood of 1962 the western section of the Southern Elbe was separated, becoming the Old Southern Elbe, while the waters of the eastern Southern Elbe now merge into the Köhlbrand, which is bridged by the Köhlbrandbrücke, the last bridge over the Elbe before the North Sea.

The Northern Elbe passes the Elbe Philharmonic Hall and is then crossed under by the old Elbe Tunnel (Alter Elbtunnel), both in Hamburg's city centre. A bit more downstream the Northern Elbe and the Köhlbrand reunite to form the Lower Elbe stream south of Altona-Altstadt, a locality of Hamburg. Right at its beginning the Lower Elbe is passed under by the New Elbe Tunnel (Neuer Elbtunnel), the last structural road link crossing the river before the North Sea. Leaving the city-state the Lower Elbe then passes between Holstein and the Elbe-Weser Triangle with Stade until it flows into the North Sea at Cuxhaven. Near its mouth it passes the entrance to the Kiel Canal at Brunsbüttel before it debouches into the North Sea.

Towns and cities on the Elbe[link]

The Elbe near Festung Königstein in Germany.

Navigation[link]

The Elbe has been navigable by commercial vessels since 1842, and provides important trade links as far inland as Prague. The river is linked by canals (Elbe-Seitenkanal, Elbe-Havel Canal, Mittellandkanal) to the industrial areas of Germany and to Berlin. The Elbe-Lübeck Canal links the Elbe to the Baltic Sea, as does the Kiel Canal, whose western entrance is near the mouth of the Elbe. The Elbe-Weser Shipping Channel connects the Elbe with the Weser.

By the Treaty of Versailles the navigation on the Elbe became subject to the International Commission of the Elbe, seated in Dresden.^[2] The statute of the Commission was signed in Dresden on February 22, 1922.^[3] Following articles 363 and 364 of the Treaty of Versailles, Czechoslovakia was entitled to lease its own harbour bassin, Moldauhafen in Hamburg. The contract of lease with Germany, and supervised by the United Kingdom, was signed on February 14, 1929 and will end in 2028. Since 1993 the Czech Republic holds the former Czechoslovak legal position.

Before Germany was reunited, waterway transport in Western Germany was hindered by the fact that inland navigation to Hamburg had to pass through the German Democratic Republic. The Elbe-Seitenkanal (Elbe Lateral Canal) was built between the West German section of the Mittellandkanal and the Lower Elbe to restore this connection. When the two nations were reunited, works were begun to improve and restore the original links: the Magdeburg Water Bridge now allows large barges to cross the Elbe without having to enter the river. The often low water levels of the Elbe do not hinder navigation to Berlin any longer.^[4]

Islands[link]

The biggest Elbe island of Wilhelmsburg between the Northern and the Southern Elbe in Hamburg

The mouth of the Elbe with the island Trischen in the North Sea.

Outer Elbe (estuary)[link]

• Medemsand
• Neuwerk – an exclave of Hamburg's borough of Mitte (centre)
• Nigehörn – an exclave Hamburg's borough of Mitte
• Scharhörn – an exclave Hamburg's borough of Mitte

Lower Elbe[link]

• Rhinplatte – west of Glückstadt
• Schwarztonnensand - east of Drochtersen
• Pagensand - west of Seestermühe
• Bishorst - west of Wedel
• Lühesand - east of Stade
• Hanskalbsand - south of Schulau
• Hahnöfersand - north of Jork
• Neßsand - south of Tinsdal
• Schweinesand - south of Blankenese (Hamburg)

Between Northern and Southern Elbe (Norderelbe/Süderelbe)[link]

• Finkenwerder – in Hamburg's borough of Mitte (centre)
• Kaltehofe (also "Kalte Hofe") – in Hamburg's borough of Mitte
• Wilhelmsburg, including the islands Veddel, Georgswerder, Kleiner Grasbrook, Steinwerder, Peute and several more – in Hamburg's borough of Mitte

Middle Elbe[link]

• Steinkopfinsel – in Magdeburg
• Rotehorninsel – in Magdeburg

Upper reaches[link]

• Gauernitzer Elbinsel – east of Gauernitz in the Dresden Basin between Dresden and Meißen
• Pillnitzer Elbinsel – in Dresden's southern quarter of Pillnitz in the Dresden Basin

Headwaters[link]

• Kmochův – in Kolín

Ferries[link]

The Dolní Žleb Ferry.

The Wörlitz Coswig Ferry.

The Zollenspieker Ferry.

The Elbe is crossed by many ferries, both passenger and car carrying. In downstream order, these include:^[5]

• Dolní Žleb Ferry, at Dolní Žleb in the Děčín District
• Rathen Ferry, at Rathen
• Pillnitz Kleinzschachwitz Ferry, in the eastern suburbs of Dresden
• Laubegast Niederpoyritz Ferry, in Dresden
• Johannstadt Neustadt Ferry, in Dresden
• Belgern Ottersitz Ferry, between Belgern and Ottersitz
• Dommitzsch Prettin Ferry, between Dommitzsch and Prettin
• Mauken Pretzsch Ferry, between Mauken and Pretzsch
• Wartenburg Elster Ferry, between Wartenburg and Elster
• Wörlitz Coswig Ferry, between Wörlitz and Coswig
• Steutz Aken Ferry, between Steutz and Aken
• Tochheim Ferry, between Tochheim and Alt Tochheim near Breitenhagen
• Ronney Barby Ferry, between Barby and Walternienburg
• Westerhüsen Ferry, at Westerhüsen near Magdeburg
• Schartau Rogätz Ferry, between Schartau and Rogätz
• Ferchland Grieben Ferry, between Ferchland and Grieben
• Sandau Büttnershof Ferry, between Sandau and Büttnershof
• Räbel Havelberg Ferry, between Räbel and Havelberg
• Lenzen Pevestorf Ferry, between Lenzen and Pevestorf
• Darchau Ferry, between Darchau and Neu Darchau
• Bleckede Ferry, between Bleckede and Neu Bleckede
• Zollenspieker Ferry, between Kirchwerder and Winsen (Luhe) to the east of Hamburg
• Ferries in the port of Hamburg, operated by HADAG^[6]
• Wischhafen Glückstadt Ferry, between Wischhafen and Glückstadt to the west of Hamburg

Many of these ferries are traditional reaction ferries, a type of cable ferry that uses the current flow of the river to provide propulsion.

Etymology[link]

First attested in Latin as Albis, the name Elbe means "river" or "river-bed" and is nothing more than the High German version of a word (albiz) found elsewhere in Germanic; cf. Old Norse river name Elfr, Swedish älv "river", Old English river name Ielf, and Middle Low German elve "river-bed".^[7]

History[link]

The Elbe was recorded by Ptolemy as Albis (Germanic for "river") in Germania Magna with its source in the Asciburgis mountains (Krkonoše, Riesengebirge or Giant Mountains), where the Germanic Vandalii lived.

The Elbe feeds the Port of Hamburg.

The Elbe passing Dresden.

The Elbe has long been an important delineator of European geography. The Romans knew the river as the Albis; however, they only attempted once to move the Eastern border of their empire forward from the Rhine to the Elbe, and this attempt failed in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD, after which they never seriously tried again. In the Middle Ages it formed the eastern limit of the Empire of Charlemagne. The river's navigable sections were also essential to the success of the Hanseatic League and much trade was carried on its waters.

The Elbe delineated the western parts of Germany from the eastern so-called East Elbia, where soccage and serfdom were more strict and prevailed longer, than westwards of the river, and where feudal lords held bigger estates than in the west. Thus incumbents of huge land-holdings became characterised as East Elbian Junkers. The Northern German area north of the Lower Elbe used to be called North Albingia in the Middle Ages. When the four Lutheran church bodies there united in 1977 they chose the name North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church. Other, administrative units were named after the river Elbe, such as the Westphalian Elbe département (1807–1813) and the Lower Elbe département (1810), and the French département Bouches-de-l'Elbe (1811–1814).

In 1945, as World War II was drawing to a close, Nazi Germany was caught between the armies of the western Allies advancing from the west and the Soviet Union advancing from the east. On 25 April 1945, these two forces linked up near Torgau, on the Elbe. The event was marked as Elbe Day. After the war, the Elbe formed part of the border between East Germany and West Germany.

During the 1970s, the Soviet Union stated that Adolf Hitler's ashes had been scattered in the Elbe following disinterment from their original burial site.^[8][9]

See also[link]

• 2002 European floods
• 2006 European floods
• Saxon Elbeland - the region of the Upper Elbe in Germany

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Elbe

• Ancient library Albis river in Germania Magna
• Source of Albis river in Asciburgis (Riesengebirge Giants mountains
• information and pictures of the spring of Labe in Giant Mountains (Krkonoše, Riesengebirge)

Geographic data related to Elbe at OpenStreetMap

• Mühlanger , Wittenberg district in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. 9 km to Lutherstadt Wittenberg –Germany --click-on: Bildergalerie click-on..click-around
• Hamburg-Wedel-Elbe-Web-Cams
• Hamburg-Cruise-Center + Elbphilharmonie Hamburg- Elbe-Harbour-Web-Cams

Frederick Emerson Small (born November 6, 1952), known publicly as Fred Small, is an American singer-songwriter. He is also a lawyer and a Unitarian Universalist minister. His songs often make a political or ethical statement. Among his best-known songs are "Heart of the Appaloosa," "Everything Possible," "Peace Is", and "Cranes Over Hiroshima". He is hailed by Pete Seeger as "one of America's best songwriters".

In 1996 he became the minister of First Church Unitarian in Littleton, Massachusetts. On April 20, 2008 he was called as Senior Minister at the First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

His original album "Love's Gonna Carry Us" had featured Small by himself singing and playing the guitar. However, as Small became more famous, his albums included more instruments and more appearances by other artists, including instrumental and vocal backing by popular New England folk artists. Famous fiddlers, guitarists, and mandolin players alike became a part of Small’s discography and helped Small increase his popularity. ^[1]

Discography[link]

• Love's Gonna Carry Us (1981)
• The Heart of the Appaloosa (1983)
• No Limit (1985)
• I Will Stand Fast (1988)
• Jaguar (1991)
• Everything Possible (1993)
• Only Love (2001)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Fred Small at Allmusic
• "Fred Small" - biography on First Church Unitarian website
• "Fred Small" - First Parish in Cambridge Unitarian Universalist website
• Former official site - from the Internet Archive
• Fred Small fansite

This article about a United States singer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Hans Albers
Hans Albers
Born	(1891-09-22)September 22, 1891 Hamburg, Germany
Died	July 24, 1960(1960-07-24) (aged 68) Starnberg, Germany
Occupation	German actor and singer
Years active	1918–1960

Hans Albers with a woman, 1924

Hans Philipp August Albers (September 22, 1891 – July 24, 1960) was a German actor and singer. He was the single biggest male movie star in Germany between 1930 and 1945 and one of the most popular German actors of the twentieth century.

Life and work[link]

Hans Albers was born in Hamburg, the son of a butcher, and grew up in the district of St. Georg. He was seriously interested in acting by his late teens and took acting classes without the knowledge of his parents. In 1915 Albers was drafted to serve in the German Army in World War I, but was wounded early on. After the war Albers moved to Berlin, where he found work as a comedic actor in various Weimar-Era Berlin theatres. His breakthrough performance was that of a waiter in the play Verbrecher (Criminals). It was also in Berlin that Albers began a long-term relationship with half-Jewish actress Hansi Burg (1898-1975). The relationship ended only when he died in 1960.

After roles in over one hundred silent films, Albers starred in the first German talkie Die Nacht gehört uns (The Night Belongs to Us) in 1929. Soon thereafter, Albers played big-mouthed strong man Mazeppa alongside Marlene Dietrich in her star-making classic Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel). Albers himself shot to fame in 1930 with the movie Der Greifer and constantly enhanced his star status with similar daredevil roles in the 1930s. He was probably at his best when teamed-up with fellow German movie legend Heinz Rühmann, as in Bomben auf Monte Carlo (1931) and Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war (1937). Many of Albers' songs from his movies became huge hits and some even remain popular to this day.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Albers and his Jewish girlfriend Hansi Burg moved to Starnberger See in Bavaria. While Albers himself never needed to show public support for the Nazi regime, he became the most popular actor under Nazi rule. The actor nevertheless, although being a party member, avoided an overly close association in public. As the ultimate sign of his popularity, the Nazis even silently accepted his relationship with Hansi Burg for a long time. But Albers finally gave in to the pressure. Hansi Burg went to Switzerland and then to Great Britain in 1939, but they secretly remained a couple with him even managing to send her financial support. They were reunited after the war, when she returned to Germany in a British uniform.

Hans Albers statue in the Hans-Albers-Platz, Hamburg-St. Pauli. By Jörg Immendorff, 1986

Inscription at the base of the Hans Albers statue: Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins

In 1943, Albers was paid a huge sum of money to star in Ufa's big-budgeted anniversary picture Münchhausen but was careful not to give the impression that he was endorsing the National Socialist regime, which was indeed, never asked of him. Also in 1943, Albers starred in another classic German film Große Freiheit Nr. 7 with actress Ilse Werner. Some of the scenes are said to have been shot in Prague because of bomb damage to Hamburg. The sailing ship "Padua" for the outdoor scenes of the film has survived under Soviet and Russian flag until this day as "Krusenstern".

After World War II, well-funded Albers avoided the financial plight and professional banning many actors faced on account of his association with Hansi Burg. Nevertheless, German "heroes" were considered undesirable by the occupation government that wanted to promote their own. This accounted for a major break in his career and made him hard to cast. Eventually he found an opening with respectful wisdom-with-age type character parts with some public acclaim, but with these never again enjoyed the huge stardom of the 1930s and early 1940s. By the early 1950s, his age finally showed and his powerful presence and freshness was almost gone. This was promoted by his increasing alcoholism during the 1950s. Yet he remained active in movies until the very end. Albers died in 1960 in a sanatorium near the Starnberg See of internal bleedings. The whole nation mourned his loss.

Taking a position in Germany that roughly corresponds with that of John Wayne in the USA, Albers' name will forever be closely associated with the North German port city of Hamburg, and especially the Hamburg neighbourhood of St. Pauli, where there is a square named "Hans-Albers-Platz". Today he is probably more known for his music than his films, and his music is still widely-known in modern Germany, even among young people. Outside of Northern Europe, however, Albers remains virtually unknown, although the image of an older man in a seaman's cap and raincoat playing accordion and singing may be recognised by many outside of Germany, even if they don't know that this image is based on Hans Albers. As a case in point, McDonald's used such an image in an American television ad campaign in 1986. In reality, Albers had no experience on the water, this being restricted to a one-day trip to Heligoland.

Many of Albers' songs were humorous tales of drunken, womanizing sailors on shore-leave, with double entendres such as "It hurts the first time, but with time, you get used to it" in reference to a girl falling in love for the first time. Albers' songs were often peppered with expressions in Low German, which is spoken in Northern Germany. His most famous song is by far "Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins," ("On the Reeperbahn at half past midnight") which has become the unofficial anthem of the colourful neighbourhood of St. Pauli. The Hans-Albers-Platz, one block south of the Reeperbahn, has a statue of Albers, by the German artist Jörg Immendorff.

Filmography (selection)[link]

Songs (selection)[link]

1931

• Das ist die Liebe der Matrosen (from picture Bomben auf Monte Carlo)
• Kind, du brauchst nicht weinen (from picture Der Draufgänger)

1932

• Flieger, grüß' mit mir die Sonne (from picture F. P. 1 antwortet nicht)
• Hoppla, jetzt komm' ich (from picture Der Sieger)
• Komm' auf die Schaukel, Luise (from stage play Liliom)
• Komm und spiel mit mir (from picture Quick)

1933

• "Mein Gorilla hat 'ne Villa im Zoo" (from picture Heut kommt's drauf an)

1936

• "In meinem Herzen Schatz, da ist für viele Platz" (from picture Savoy-Hotel 217)

1937

• "Jawohl, meine Herrn" [with Heinz Rühmann] (from picture Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war)

1939

• "Good bye, Jonny" (from picture Wasser für Canitoga)

1944

• "La Paloma" (from picture Große Freiheit Nr. 7)
• "Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins" (from picture Große Freiheit Nr. 7)

1952

• "Kleine weiße Möwe" (from picture Käpt'n Bay-Bay)
• "Nimm mich mit, Kapitän, auf die Reise" (from picture Käpt'n Bay-Bay)

1954

• "Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins" (from picture Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins)
• "Komm auf die Schaukel, Luise" (from picture Auf der Reeperbahn nachts um halb eins)

1957

• "Das Herz von St. Pauli" (from picture Das Herz von St. Pauli)

1959

• "Mein Junge, halt die Füße still" (from picture Dreizehn alte Esel)

Bibliography[link]

• Joachim Cadenbach: Hans Albers. Berlin: Universitas-Verlag, 1975, ISBN 3-8004-0818-X
• Eberhard Spieß: Hans Albers. Eine Filmographie. Herausgegeben von Hilmar Hoffmann und Walter Schobert in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Deutschen Institut für Filmkunde, Wiesbaden. Verlag: Frankfurt am Main: Kommunales Kino, 1977
• Uwe-Jens Schumann: Hans Albers – seine Filme, sein Leben. (= Heyne-Filmbibliothek, Band 18) München: Heyne, 1980, ISBN 3-453-86018-7
• Hans-Christoph Blumenberg: In meinem Herzen, Schatz … Die Lebensreise des Schauspielers und Sängers Hans Albers . Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1981, ISBN 3-596-10662-1
• Michaela Krützen: Hans Albers: Eine deutsche Karriere. Berlin; Weinheim: Beltz Quadriga 1995
• Michaela Krützen: „Gruppe 1: Positiv“ Carl Zuckmayers Beurteilungen über Hans Albers und Heinz Rühmann. In: Carl Zuckmayer Jahrbuch/ hg. von Günther Nickel. Göttingen 2002, S. 179-227
• Matthias Wegner: Hans Albers. Ellert & Richter, Hamburg 2005 (Hamburger Köpfe) ISBN 3-8319-0224-0

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hans Albers

• Hans Albers at the Internet Movie Database
• Photographs of Hans Albers and Bibliography
• Albers at filmportal.de

Johann Strauss III (February 16, 1866 – January 9, 1939; German: Johann Strauß III; also known as Johann Eduard Strauss) was an Austrian composer whose father was Eduard Strauss, whose uncles were Johann Strauss II & Josef Strauss, and whose grandfather was Johann Strauss I. He was unofficially entrusted with the task of upholding his family's tradition after the disbandment of the Strauss Orchestra by his father in 1901. His talents were not fully realised during his lifetime as musical tastes had changed in the Silver Age with more popular composers such as Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus dominating the Viennese musical scene with their operettas, although his uncle, Johann Strauss II, supervised his development as a musician, a fact disputed by Eduard Strauss.

Despite his keen interest in composing, he was better remembered as a conductor. His only stage work, the three-act operetta Katze und Maus, composed in 1898, premiered in Vienna on 23 December 1898, at the Theater an der Wien.^[1] Its public reaction bordered on utter dislike, and music critics called for the distraught composer to reassess himself and to appear under a pseudonym, in order not to tarnish the name of his famous relatives. He salvaged the music score and produced independent pieces of which the waltzes Sylvianen Op. 1 and Leonie Op. 2 survived obscurity.

He also conducted from the violin in the style of the Vorgeiger and of his family. In 1903, he elevated the Strauss family to a new age of development when the Deutsche Grammophon AG of Germany recorded his conducting of the Johann Strauss Orchestra on eight single-sided records of works by his family. Principally, he was the first conductor in the Strauss family to actively conduct works to be recorded by prominent recording companies. His later works, such as Dem Muthigen gehört die Welt (The World Belongs to the Brave), Op. 25, and Krönungs-Walzer (Coronation Waltz), Op. 40, (the latter celebrating the coronation of King Edward VII) were also considerably more popular than his earlier efforts.

Johann Strauss III died in Berlin on 9 January 1939,^[1] aged 72.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Johann Strauss III at Allmusic