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Count palatine is a high noble title,^[1] used to render several comital styles, in some cases also shortened to Palatine, which can have other meanings as well.

Importance of a Count Palatine in Medieval Europe[link]

Comes palatinus[link]

This Latin title is the original, but also pre-feudal: it originated as a Roman Comes, which was a non-hereditary court title of high rank, the specific part palatinus being the adjective derived from palatium ('palace').

But after the fall of Rome, a new, feudal type of title, also known simply as palatinus, started developing. The Frankish kings of the Merovingian dynasty employed a high official, the comes palatinus, who at first assisted the king in his judicial duties and at a later date discharged many of these himself. Other counts palatine were employed on military and administrative work.

In Visigothic Spain, the Officium Palatinum consisted of a number of men with the title of count that managed the various departments of the royal household. The COMES CUBICULARIORUM oversaw the chamberlains, the COMES SCANCIORUM directed the cup-bearers, the COMES STABULORUM directed the equerries in charge of the stables, etc. The Ostrogothic kings that ruled in Italy also maintained palatine counts with titles such as COMES PATRIMONIUM, who was in charge of the patrimonial or private real estate of the king, and others.

The system was maintained by the Carolingian sovereigns (see the twelve legendary Paladins). A Frankish capitulary of 882 and Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, writing about the same time, testify to the extent to which the judicial work of the Frankish Empire had passed into their hands, and one grant of power was followed by another.

Instead of remaining near the person of the king, some of the counts palatine were sent to various parts of his empire to act as judges and governors, the districts ruled by them being called palatinates. Being in a special sense the representatives of the sovereign, they were entrusted with more extended power than the ordinary counts. Thus comes the later and more general use of the word palatine, its application as an adjective to persons entrusted with special powers and also to the districts over which these powers were exercised.

By the High Middle Ages, the title "count" had become increasingly common, to the point that both great magnates who ruled regions that were the size of duchies, and local castle-lords, might style themselves "count". As the great magnates began to centralize their power over their local castle-lords, they felt the need to assert the difference between themselves and these minor "counts". Therefore, several of these great magnates began styling themselves "Count Palatine", signifying great counts ruling regions equivalent to duchies, such as the Counts Palatine of Champagne in the 1200s.

Related terms[link]

Pfalzgraf is an exclusively German title (from the above Latin comes palatinus 'count of the palace'), rendered in English also (recorded since 1548) as palsgrave since medieval times for the permanent representative of the Frankish king, later of the Holy Roman Emperor, in a palatial domain of the crown (pfalz). Grafio is probably from the Greek grafein 'to write', hence 'scribe'; it plausibly comes via the Byzantine Greek grapheus or suggrapheus "he who calls a meeting, i.e. the court, together", which denoted a civil servant, rather than a feudal count. There were dozens of these royal Pfalzen throughout the Empire, and the monarch travelled between them. The empire had no real capital. This practice of a mobile, somewhat omnipresent king, thus also 'eating his taxes' (literally wining and dining), was common in early feudal Europe. Travel was often already required because of military considerations. The count responsible for these places was thus responsible for the palace during the king's absence. In the empire the word count palatine was also used to designate the officials who assisted the emperor in exercising the rights which were reserved for his personal consideration, like granting arms. They were called imperial counts palatine (in Latin comites palatini caesarii, or comites sacri palatii; in German, Hofpfalzgrafen. Both the Latin form (Comes) palatinus and the French (comte) palatin have been used as part of the full title of Dukes of Burgundy (a branch of the French royal dynasty) to render their rare German title Freigraf, which was the style of a (later lost) bordering principality, the allodial countship of Burgundy (Freigrafschaft Burgund in German) which came to be known as Franche-Comté.

In early medieval Poland the Palatinus was next in rank to the King. As he is also the chief commander of the King's army the rank is merged with Wojewoda, with the latter replacing the title of Palatine. During the Fragmentation of Poland each Prince would have his own voivode. When some of these Principalities are reunited into the Kingdom of Poland the Palatines are infeudated with them as there is no local Prince anymore. Or rather on behalf of the King to whom all these princely titles returned. The Principalities are thus made Voivodships (sometimes translated as Palatinates). In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth the Voivodes sit in the Senat. Throughout its history the dignity remained non-hereditary or semi-hereditary. Today voivodes are government officials.

Medieval social structure and development of the Count Palatine[link]

During the 11th century, some imperial palatine counts became a valuable political counterweight against the mighty duchies. Surviving old palatine counties were turned into new institutional pillars through which the imperial authority could be exercised. By the reigns of Henry the Fowler and especially of Otto the Great, comites palatini were sent into all parts of the country to support the royal authority by checking the independent tendencies of the great tribal dukes. We hear of a count palatine in Saxony, and of others in Lorraine, in Bavaria and in Swabia, their duties being to administer the royal estates in these duchies.

Next to the Dukes of Lotharingia, Bavaria, Swabia and Saxony, who had become dangerously powerful feudal princes, loyal supporters of the German Emperor were installed as counts palatine.

The Lotharingian palatines out of the Ezzonian dynasty were important commanders of the imperial army and were often employed during internal and external conflicts (e.g. to suppress rebelling counts or dukes, to settle frontier disputes with the Hungarian and the French kingdom and to lead imperial campaigns).

Although a palatinate could be rooted for decades into one dynasty, the office of the palatine counts became hereditary only during the 12th century. During the 11th century the palatinates were still regarded as beneficia, non-hereditary fiefs. The count palatine in Bavaria, an office held by the family of Wittelsbach, became duke of this land, the lower comital title being then merged into the higher ducal one. The Count Palatine of Lotharinga, changed its name to Count Palatine of the Rhine in 1085, alone remaining independent until 1777. The office having become hereditary, Pfalzgrafen were in existence until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. The palatinate of Saxony merged with the Electoral Duchy of Saxony. The Palatinate of the Rhine became an electorate, and both were Imperial Vicars.

The term count palatine was not used in the United Kingdom. Just as Count always remained reserved for continental territories, even though the equivalence of earl became clear by rendering it in Latin also as Comes, earl palatine was the exclusively British title for the incumbent of a British county palatine.

See also[link]

• Imperial Vicar
• County palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos
• Count palatine of Hungary

References[link]

Sources and references[link]

• EtymologyOnLine
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.  passim
• Titles of counts palatine of Burgundy
• Titles of counts palatine of the Rhine
• Westermann, Großer Atlas zur Weltgeschichte (has a map of known Pfalz sites) (German)

Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II (October 25, 1825 – June 3, 1899), also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son (German: Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely then responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century.

Strauss was born in St. Ulrich (now a part of Neubau), the son of Johann Strauss I, another composer of dance music. His father did not wish him to become a composer, but rather a banker; however, the son defied his father's wishes, and went on to study music with the composer Joseph Drechsler and the violin with Anton Kollmann, the ballet répétiteur of the Vienna Court Opera. Strauss had two younger brothers, Josef and Eduard Strauss, who became composers of light music as well, although they were never as well known as their elder brother.

Some of Johann Strauss's most famous works include The Blue Danube, Kaiser-Walzer, Tales from the Vienna Woods, the Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka, and the Pizzicato Polka. Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the most well-known.

Early life[link]

His father, Johann Strauss I, in an etching from 1835

Strauss was born in St. Ulrich near Vienna (now a part of Neubau), Austria, on October 25, 1825, to the famous composer Johann Strauss I. His father did not want him to become a musician but rather a banker.^[1] Nevertheless, Strauss Junior studied the violin secretly as a child with the first violinist of his father's orchestra, Franz Amon.^[1] When his father discovered his son secretly practising on a violin one day, he gave him a severe whipping, saying that he was going to beat the music out of the boy.^[2] It seems that rather than trying to avoid a Strauss rivalry, the elder Strauss only wanted his son to escape the rigours of a musician's life.^[3] It was only when the father abandoned his family for a mistress, Emilie Trampusch, that the son was able to concentrate fully on a career as a composer with the support of his mother.^[4]

Strauss studied counterpoint and harmony with theorist Professor Joachim Hoffmann,^[1] who owned a private music school. His talents were also recognized by composer Joseph Drechsler, who taught him exercises in harmony. His other violin teacher, Anton Kollmann, who was the ballet répétiteur of the Vienna Court Opera, also wrote excellent testimonials for him. Armed with these, he approached the Viennese authorities to apply for a license to perform.^[5] He initially formed his small orchestra where he recruited his members at the Zur Stadt Belgrad tavern, where musicians seeking work could be hired easily.^[6]

Debut as a composer[link]

Johann Strauss in his younger years

Johann Strauss I's influence over the local entertainment establishments meant that many of them were wary of offering the younger Strauss a contract for fear of angering the father.^[4] Strauss Jr. was able to persuade the Dommayer's Casino in Hietzing, a suburb of Vienna, to allow him to perform.^[7] The elder Strauss, in anger at his son's disobedience, and at that of the proprietor, refused to ever play at the Dommayer's Casino again,^[8] which had been the site of many of his earlier triumphs.

Strauss made his debut at Dommayer's in October 1844, where he performed some of his first works, such as the waltzes "Sinngedichte", Op. 1 and "Gunstwerber", Op. 4 and the polka "Herzenslust", Op. 3.^[1] Critics and the press were unanimous in their praise for Strauss's music. A critic for Der Wanderer commented that "Strauss’s name will be worthily continued in his son; children and children’s children can look forward to the future, and three-quarter time will find a strong footing in him."^[1]

Strauss at the beginning of his career.

Despite the initial fanfare, Strauss found his early years as a composer difficult, but he soon won over audiences after accepting commissions to perform away from home. The first major appointment for the young composer was his award of the honorary position of "Kapellmeister of the 2nd Vienna Citizen's Regiment", which had been left vacant following Joseph Lanner's death two years before.^[9]

Vienna was wracked by a bourgeois revolution on February 24, 1848, and the intense rivalry between father and son became much more apparent. Johann Jr. decided to side with the revolutionaries. It was a decision that was professionally disadvantageous, as the Austrian royalty twice denied him the much coveted 'KK Hofballmusikdirektor' position, which was first designated especially for Johann I in recognition of his musical contributions. Further, the younger Strauss was also arrested by the Viennese authorities for publicly playing "La Marseillaise", but was later acquitted.^[10] The elder Strauss remained loyal to the monarchy, and composed his "Radetzky March", Op. 228 (dedicated to the Habsburg field marshal Joseph Radetzky von Radetz), which would become one of his best-known compositions.^[11]

When the elder Strauss died from scarlet fever in Vienna in 1849, the younger Strauss merged both their orchestras and engaged in further tours.^[1] Later, he also composed a number of patriotic marches dedicated to the Habsburg Emperor Franz Josef I, such as the "Kaiser Franz-Josef Marsch" Op. 67 and the "Kaiser Franz Josef Rettungs Jubel-Marsch" Op. 126, probably to ingratiate himself in the eyes of the new monarch, who ascended to the Austrian throne after the 1848 revolution.^[1]

Career advancements[link]

Strauss Jr. eventually surpassed his father's fame, and became one of the most popular waltz composers of the era, extensively touring Austria–Hungary, Poland, and Germany with his orchestra. He applied for the KK Hofballmusikdirektor Music Director of the Royal Court Balls position, which he eventually attained in 1863,^[1] after being denied several times before for his frequent brushes with the local authorities.

In 1853, due to constant mental and physical demands, Strauss suffered a nervous breakdown.^[1] He took a seven-week vacation in the countryside in the summer of that year, on the advice of doctors. Johann's younger brother Josef was persuaded by his family to abandon his career as an engineer and take command of Johann's orchestra in the interim.^[1]

In 1855, Strauss accepted commissions from the management of the Tsarskoye-Selo Railway Company of Saint Petersburg to play in Russia for the Vauxhall Pavilion at Pavlovsk in 1856. He would return to perform in Russia every year until 1865.^[1]

Later, in the 1870s, Strauss and his orchestra toured the United States, where he took part in the Boston Festival at the invitation of bandmaster Patrick Gilmore and was the lead conductor in a 'Monster Concert' of over 1000 performers,^[12] performing his "Blue Danube" waltz, amongst other pieces, to great acclaim.^[12]

Marriages[link]

Strauss married the singer Henrietta Treffz in 1862, and they remained together until her death in 1878.^[1] Six weeks after her death,^[1][13] Strauss married the actress Angelika Dittrich. Dittrich was not a fervent supporter of his music, and their differences in status and opinion, and especially her indiscretion, led him to seek a divorce.^[1]

Strauss was not granted a divorce by the Roman Catholic Church, and therefore changed religion and nationality, and became a citizen of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in January 1887.^[1] Strauss sought solace in his third wife Adele Deutsch, whom he married in August 1882. She encouraged his creative talent to flow once more in his later years, resulting in many famous compositions, such as the operettas Der Zigeunerbaron and Waldmeister, and the waltzes "Kaiser-Walzer" Op. 437, "Kaiser Jubiläum" Op. 434, and "Klug Gretelein" Op. 462.

Musical rivals and admirers[link]

Johann Strauss and Johannes Brahms photographed in Vienna.

Although Strauss was the most sought-after composer of dance music in the latter half of the 19th century, stiff competition was present in the form of Karl Michael Ziehrer and Émile Waldteufel; the latter held a commanding position in Paris.^[14] Phillip Fahrbach also denied the younger Strauss the commanding position of the KK Hofballmusikdirektor when the latter first applied for the post. The German operetta composer Jacques Offenbach, who made his name in Paris, also posed a challenge to Strauss in the operetta field.^[15]

Strauss was admired by other prominent composers: Richard Wagner once admitted that he liked the waltz "Wein, Weib und Gesang" Op. 333.^[16] Richard Strauss (unrelated to the Strauss family), when writing his Rosenkavalier waltzes, said in reference to Johann Strauss, "How could I forget the laughing genius of Vienna?"^[17]

Johannes Brahms was a personal friend of Strauss; the latter dedicated his waltz "Seid umschlungen, Millionen!" ("Be Embraced, You Millions!"), Op. 443, to him.^[18] A story is told in biographies of both men that Strauss's wife Adele approached Brahms with a customary request that he autograph her fan. It was usual for the composer to inscribe a few measures of his best-known music, and then sign his name. Brahms, however, inscribed a few measures from the "Blue Danube", and then wrote beneath it: "Unfortunately, NOT by Johannes Brahms."^[19]

Stage works[link]

The most famous of Strauss' operettas are Die Fledermaus, Eine Nacht in Venedig, and Der Zigeunerbaron. Notwithstanding their general lack of modern popularity, there are many dance pieces drawn from themes of his operettas, such as "Cagliostro-Walzer" Op. 370 (from Cagliostro in Wien), "O Schöner Mai" Walzer Op. 375 (from Prinz Methusalem), "Rosen aus dem Süden" Walzer Op. 388 (from Das Spitzentuch der Königin), and "Kuss-Walzer" op. 400 (from Der lustige Krieg), that have survived obscurity and become well-known. Strauss also wrote an opera, Ritter Pázmán,^[20] and was in the middle of composing a ballet, Aschenbrödel, when he died in 1899.^[21]

Death and legacy[link]

A statue of the Waltz King in Stadtpark, Vienna

Silhouette by Otto Böhler

Strauss was diagnosed with pleural pneumonia in the spring of 1899,^[21] and died in Vienna, at the age of 73. He was buried in the Zentralfriedhof. At the time of his death, he was still composing his ballet Aschenbrödel.^[21]

Strauss's music is now regularly performed at the annual Neujahrskonzert of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, as a result of the efforts by Clemens Krauss who performed a special all-Strauss programme in 1929 with the Viennese orchestra. Many distinguished Strauss interpreters include Willi Boskovsky,^[22] who carried on the "Vorgeiger" tradition of conducting with violin in hand, as is the Strauss family custom, as well as Herbert von Karajan and the opera conductor Riccardo Muti. In addition, the Wiener Johann Strauss Orchester, which was formed in 1966, pays tribute to the touring orchestras which once made the Strauss family so famous.^[23]

Most of the Strauss works that are performed today may once have existed in a slightly different form, as Eduard Strauss destroyed much of the original Strauss orchestral archives in a furnace factory in Vienna's Mariahilf district in 1907.^[24] Eduard, then the only surviving brother of the three, took this drastic precaution after agreeing to a pact between himself and brother Josef that whoever outlived the other was to destroy their works. The measure was intended to prevent the Strauss family's works from being claimed by another composer. This may also have been fueled by Strauss's rivalry with another of Vienna's popular waltz and march composers, Karl Michael Ziehrer.^[25]

Portrayals in the media[link]

The lives of the Strauss dynasty members and their world-renowned craft of composing Viennese waltzes are also briefly documented in several television adaptations, such as The Strauss Family (1972), The Strauss Dynasty (1991)^[26] and Strauss, the King of 3/4 Time (1995).^[27] Many other films used his works and melodies, and several films have been based upon the life of the musician, the most famous of which is called The Great Waltz (1938).^[28]

Alfred Hitchcock made a low-budget biographical film of Strauss in 1933 called Waltzes from Vienna.^[29] After a trip to Vienna, Walt Disney was inspired to create four feature films. One of those was The Waltz King, a loosely adapted biopic of Johann Strauss, which aired as part of the Wonderful World of Disney in the U.S. in 1963.^[30] In Mikhail Bulgakov's 1940 (published 1967) novel, The Master and Margarita, Johann Strauss conducts the orchestra during Satan's Great Ball at the invitation of Behemoth.

A Corny Concerto (1943), a Warner Bros cartoon, directed by Bob Clampett with animation by Robert McKimson, features music that was composed by Johann Strauss, and is a parody of Walt Disney's 1940 Fantasia. The cartoon is narrated by Elmer Fudd, parodying Deems Taylor's appearance in Fantasia.

The 1953 animated short "Johann Mouse" from the series Tom and Jerry features a mouse mesmerised by the playing of several Strauss waltzes by the cat.

	"The Blue Danube"
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

Works[link]

See List of operettas by Johann Strauss II and List of compositions by Johann Strauss II.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Gänzl, Kurt. The Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre (3 Volumes). New York: Schirmer Books, 2001.
• Traubner, Richard. Operetta: A Theatrical History. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1983.
• Jacob, H. E. Johann Strauss, Father and Son: A Century of Light Music. The Greystone Press, 1940.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Johann Strauss II

Ballet portal

• A complete list of Strauss's compositions
• A complete list of compositions by Johann Strauss II compiled by the Johann Strauss Society of New York
• European Archive Copyright free LP recording of several (abridged) works by Johann Strauss II, at the European Archive (for non-American viewers only).
• Johann Strauss Gallery
• List of Strauss's stage works with date, theatre information and links
• Free scores by Johann Strauss II at the International Music Score Library Project
• www.kreusch-sheet-music.net Free Scores by Strauss
• Free scores by Johann Strauss II in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)