Text Box:  20. Our next composer was from Austria and has the grand title of the “Waltz King”…having written over 400 of them. His name is Johann Strauss, Junior. He was born in 1825 and died in 1899, at age 73. His beautiful Blue Danube Waltz is known by all, whether they like waltzes or not. Strauss came from a very musical family. In fact, his father wrote a waltz that was used during the coronation of Queen Victoria. His father, however, didn’t want Johann Junior to go into music, so upon Junior’s forming his own orchestra and writing his own waltz music, there arose much jealousy between father and son. When Junior debuted this orchestra and music, his father actually sent a man to hiss during the performance. But Strauss Jr., by playing a combination of his father’s and his own waltzes, captivated the audience and was carried off on the listeners’ shoulders. Father and son even reconciled and ended up embracing. Goulding ranks Johann Junior as the 46th greatest classical composer…pretty low in many people’s opinions. written in 1869.