Oscar Straus - Walzerträume (1907)

Oscar Nathan Straus (6 March 1870 – 11 January 1954) was a Viennese composer of operettas, film scores, and songs. He also wrote about 500 cabaret songs, chamber music, and orchestral and choral works. His original name was actually Strauss, but for professional purposes he deliberately omitted the final 's' as he didn't want to be confused of as a member of the Johann Strauss family. Along with Franz Lehár, Leo Fall and Emmerich Kálmán, he is one of the most important composers of the so-called Silver Operetta Era.

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"Walzerträume" based on motives from the Operetta "Ein Walzertraum" (1907)

Wiener Symphoniker conducted by Robert Stolz
rec. 1975

He studied music with Max Bruch. According to Oscar Straus, he was "the most conservative of all conservative musicians that ever existed". After his studies, he met Johann Strauss and played his own compositions for him. Johann Strauss is said to have said to him (according to Oscar Straus's own words in a radio interview in 1953): "Leave the bland symphonies and write S' dashing waltzes. Continue the tradition of Strauss waltzes."

In the late 1920s, Straus worked in Paris, where he wrote for Sacha Guitry, among others. In 1930, Straus went to Hollywood for the first time. There, Ernst Lubitsch filmed the operetta A Waltz Dream under the title The Smiling Lieutenant. Due to the great success, he then composed the music for the film One Hour with You, also directed by Lubitsch.

Then Straus made the "biggest mistake of my life" (according to his own statement in the aforementioned radio interview in 1953) and, despite many warnings, returned from Hollywood to Austria, where he settled with his wife in Bad Ischl. Straus summed up in 1953: "What worries, excitement, money I would have saved myself if I had stayed over there back then." After the "Anschluss of Austria", the family made it clear that they had to leave Austria. This project was achieved at short notice by an invitation for Straus to Zurich, where he was to conduct the premiere of the revival of his operetta Rund um die Liebe. After his departure from Austria, he had succeeded (in his own words) "with the greatest sacrifices in every respect" to let his wife and son come out months later. From Switzerland, Straus went to Paris, where he received French citizenship and had a premiere just a month before the invasion of German troops.

Via Spain and Portugal, Straus came to New York with his wife and their sons at the beginning of December 1940, from where they immediately travelled on to Hollywood. Two children from her first marriage remained in Europe: daughter Katharina survived thanks to her marriage to a grandson of the famous painter Hans Makart. Son Leo Straus, who worked as a dramaturge and librettist, was deported with his wife to Auschwitz, where they both died in 1944.

Straus was no longer able to gain a foothold in the film business in Hollywood, and he therefore undertook tours in North America as a conductor of classical Viennese light music. In 1948 he also received citizenship of the USA, but shortly afterwards returned to Europe, where he settled again in Bad Ischl. He achieved a late success with the world-famous music he composed for the 1950 French film La Ronde by Max Ophüls.

From his first marriage in 1895 to the violinist and concertmaster Nelly Irmen (stage name of Helene Neumann, * 1872) came Katharina (1898–1982), Louis (1895, killed in 1917 in the Balkans in the First World War) and Leo Straus (1897–1944) who died with his wife in Auschwitz. In 1908, Straus married a second time to the singer Clara Singer (1886–1967); they had two sons, the composer Erwin Straus (1910–1966) and the writer and director Walter Straus (1913–1945) who died by suicide in Baltimore, USA

Straus' grave is located in the Bad Ischl cemetery.


Title page for Straus' compositions for the Überbrettl
Awards