The French Strauss : the ballroom conductor Isaac Strauss at the Court of Napoleon III
The name of Isaac Strauss has fallen into oblivion. Overshadowed by the Strausses of Vienna; Isac is only remembered for his Judaica collection, shown today at the Musée d’art et d’histoire du judaïsme in Paris.
Born in 1806 in Strasbourg, Strauss was the son of a Jewish barber, who played the violin at weddings and festivals, and the great-grand-father of Claude Levi-Strauss. Appointed director of the Court balls, conducted the celebrated bals de l’Opéra and as director of the Salons du casino de Vichy was instrumental in developing the town as a sought-after spa. While he merely composed ball music (mostly waltzes, polkas, and quadrilles) dedicated to the most important politicians and artists of this time, today his music is frequently mis-attributed to Johann Strauss.
About the speakers:
Laure Schnapper studied musicology at the Sorbonne and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. She has been a Professor at EHESS since 1997. She also chairs the Institut Européen des Musiques Juives. Following the publication of her Ph.D. thesis, L’ostinato, procédé musical universel (H. Champion, 1998), she issued many articles about 19th-century Parisian musical life. Her latest book, Musique et musiciens de bal: Isaac Strauss au service de Napoléon III (Hermann, 2023), was awarded the Prix Eugène-Carrière of the Académie Française.
Paraskevi Martzavou was born and raised in Thessaloniki where she attended Aristole Univeristy. She also studied in Hungary (Janus Pannonius University, Pécs, Jozsef Attila University, Szeged, and Debrecen University) and worked as an archaeologist for the Greek Archaeological Service. She pursued her graduate studies in Paris and obtained her doctorate in epigraphy, Greek Institutions, and ancient history (École Pratique des Hautes Études, IVème Section). At Oxford University she held a post-doctoral position on “The social and cultural construction of Emotions in the Greek World”. Since 2015 she has lectured in the Classics Department at Columbia University where she teaches Greek literature, history, and culture from Homer to the present.
