This chapter provides a summary of the increasingly independent careers of Johann Strauss (Son) and Eduard up to the death of the former. While Johann focussed on the composition of operettas and one comic opera, with occasional appearances as the director of dance music, Eduard was fully committed to the Strauss Orchestra, in Vienna and internationally (including the United States, Russia and Britain). Johann Strauss became an increasingly celebrated figure in Vienna, notably in 1894 (the fiftieth anniversary of his debut). Eduard, on the other hand, became disillusioned with the city, aggravated by the secret embezzlement of his savings by members of his family.

This chapter examines how the law, and especially litigation, played an important but paradoxical role in both holding the Bandmann Circuit together and also threatening to destabilize it as disputes erupted with almost predictable regularity. Enacted in the public ‘theatre’ of courts and trials, these disagreements impacted not only on labour relations, but also on the ‘intimate relations’ of marriage and reproduction; they affected artistic production and were influenced by cultural differences and media reporting. Maurice E. Bandmann’s many and often highly publicized court cases generated a secondary stage, where his artists had additional appearances. In ANT terms, the stage and the courts thus became linked, acting on one another in a mutually reinforcing activity that ultimately strengthened the network. The legal disputes centred on two main kinds of breaches: copyright and of labour contracts. Both elements constituted crucial assets in the Bandmann Circuit. Copyright protected the network’s intellectual property, whereas contracts regulated the deployment of human capital.