Straus, Oscar

Related Category: Music: History, Composers, and Performers: Biographies

(ôs´kär shtrous), 1870–1954, Austrian composer; studied in Vienna and with Max Bruch in Berlin. After a brief career as conductor he turned entirely to composition. His operas and instrumental works are eclipsed by his successful operettas, particularly A Waltz Dream (1907) and The Chocolate Soldier (1908; based on G. B. Shaw's Arms and the Man). During the early 1930s Straus wrote scores for films in Hollywood. In 1939 he became a French citizen, and in 1940 he moved to the United States.