The Johann Strauss Ensemble of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra is a recreation of the orchestra with which Johann Strauss began his stellar career, in the Casino Dommayer (Vienna-Hietzing) of 1844. He performed there with a small orchestra of only twelve musicians that he conducted while playing first violin, just as Johann Strauss I (his father) and Josef Lanner did. Johann Strauss II's request for permission to offer public entertainment with such an orchestra was made when he was just nineteen, and it still is on file with the archives of the City of Vienna.

Aiming to revive this traditional line-up, twelve leading musicians of the Vienna Symphony founded the Johann Strauss Ensemble in 1965.

Beginning in 1984, conductor and violinist Johannes Wildner was the ensemble's musical director and played — in Johann Strauss' tradition — the first violin. In 2008, concert master Anton Sorokow began alternating with Maestro Wildner.
The Johann Strauss Ensemble regularly tours across all of Europe, the U.S.A., Canada, South Africa and Japan.