The Austrian composer, conductor, and violinist Josef Hellmesberger, Jr. was a famous figure in late 19th century Vienna, the composer of 22 operettas, and the successor to Mahler on the podium at the Vienna Philharmonic. Though he is well-known today, his instrumental works occasionally appear on compilations of Viennese dance music. Hellmesberger, known by the nickname Pepi, was born in Vienna on April 9, 1855 into an Austrian family with several prominent musical members. His father, Josef Hellmesberger, Sr., was a famed violinist and conductor, and his grandfather Georg Hellmesberger, Sr., uncle Georg Hellmesberger, Jr., and brother Ferdinand Hellmesberger (a student of Bruckner) were also musically active in Vienna. The senior Josef Hellmesberger gave his son his first music lessons and had already inducted him into the family Hellmesberger Quartet by the time the youngster was 15. As his father's health worsened, Josef, Jr. took over leadership of the quartet in 1887. He joined the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra at 18, but much of his early career was spent in the Austrian military as an orchestral concertmaster (in a regimental chapel) and as a drummer. Beginning in 1878 he was a professor at the Conservatory of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna, and in 1890 he was named court music director of the imperial Vienna Court orchestra and also of Vienna's Ringtheater. With this broad experience, he was in touch with Viennese popular tastes. His first major composition was a set of incidental pieces to celebrate the 25th wedding anniversary of the emperor Franz Joseph I and his ill-fated Princess Sisi in 1879. The following year saw Hellmesberger's first operetta, Der Graf von Gleichen, and more often than not after that, each new year in Vienna would see the production of a new Hellmesberger operetta; several were even premiered after his death. He also wrote an opera, Fata Morgana (1886), and a posthumously edited Singspiel, Wiener G'schichten. As the 20th century dawned, Hellmesberger's career was flourishing. He served as the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic, succeeding Mahler, from 1901 to 1903, and he continued to produce new operettas, moving in 1903 to the Stuttgart Court Theatre as court composer. He also composed waltzes, polkas, and other short orchestral pieces, some of which appear on compilations devoted to Viennese dance music, as well as some songs and ballet music. His operettas, however, are rarely performed and apparently none have never been recorded. Hellmesberger returned to Vienna in 1907 but fell ill and died there on April 25, 1907. ~ James Manheim, Rovi