Biography
Almost without exception, everyone will recognise the music from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey: it’s a movie classic theme tune and has a dramatic intensity that’s captured the imagination of the public the world over.
Richard Strauss was reputed to be the last of the great German Romantics.
He epitomises the true spirit of the Romantic composers: whilst others around him were experimenting and moving away from the traditions that had been set before them, Strauss developed from where Brahms and Schumann had left off.
He successfully combines the elements of drama, intensity and apocalyptic beauty in his music whilst still adhering to the essential principles of writing melody, harmony and rhythm in a conventional way – unlike most of his contemporaries.
This is gripping music and although much of it was written only forty or fifty years ago is music to which we can all relate today.
Strauss was born into a highly musical family.
His father was an exceptional horn player and started Richard’s piano lessons when his son was only four.
The boy began composing just two years later, with some considerable degree of success – there was an obvious talent here.
He was an extremely bright young man who sailed through school and university, eventually studying philosophy and aesthetics alongside music.
He was a tall and good looking, and very much dressed the part of a businessman; in his later years it is common knowledge that he would only undertake conducting engagements if the money was right!
His career started when a connection was made with the celebrated Hans von Bülow, with whom it seems nearly all the eminent Romantic composers came into contact at one time or another.
This association led to his being offered a succession of jobs in Munich, where he met his wife Pauline, a singer from the Munich Opera.
He quickly developed a marvellous reputation as a conductor and was very much in demand right up to his last days.
However, as was the case with most other composers, the first performances of his works invariably provoked extreme reactions, and this was obviously something that deeply upset and angered Strauss at the time.
He is now, of course, looked upon with some degree of reverence, particularly for his tone poems, which demonstrate his remarkable gift of writing for the orchestra in a vivid, colourful and exciting way.
He was also very keen on writing operas and amongst his triumphs in this field are Der Rosenkavalier, Salome, Elektra and Arabella.
Throughout the period in his life when he was at his most prolific he held a succession of prime jobs in Berlin and Vienna, and was never one to be forced into doing things against his will.
This inevitably led to his being involved in a number of difficult situations, but by and large he managed to find ways around such problems, only leaving one post acrimoniously – that of the directorship of the Vienna Opera, from which he resigned in 1924.
His earlier works and those written in the last four or five years of his life are the ones that demonstrate his best creative output, and they really are well worth exploring for lovers of colourful, exciting, highly charged late romantic music.
Till Eulenspiegel
Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche
1865, Orchestral
Till Eulenspiegel, famous rebel and prankster, may have been a real historical person but we will never know, for he must already have been a legend by the time the first existing accounts of his adventures were published in 1515. This anonymous book was republished in 1519 and quickly translated into several languages. The French were much taken by the character and his name – Eulenspiegel was adapted as a new French word for rogue, espiègle – and when his stories were reprinted in a new version in the nineteenth century it is quite likely that Strauss’s imagination was inspired.
It is possible that Strauss had intended to write an opera around the the rogue hero’s adventures, but it seems that he was put off by the failure of his previous work in this genre – Guntram – and therefore opted for the relative safety of a tone poem.
The tone poem opens with the first of the character’s themes, over which, on the score of a friend, Strauss wrote: ‘Once upon a time there was a clowning rogue . . .’. It is followed by the second of his themes, which is extended and developed into one of the most celebrated French horn melodies ever written. Strauss completed his sentence here, writing over the second theme ‘. . . whose name was Till Eulenspiegel.’ The introduction finishes with a short climax and we dive straight into the hero’s adventures.
The original themes are cleverly transformed as we seem to hear Till spread chaos as he charges through the market-place on horse-back. After each prank, he mocks the people chasing him, thumbing his nose (a serious insult in those days!!) as he scampers out of reach. Eventually he is caught for his tricks and sentenced to death.
His final prank is that he refuses to lie quiet after he is dead and buried (!) and this is cleverly reproduced in Strauss’s ending, where we hear again the impudent Till theme that seems to imply that his spirit will live on and on.
Don Juan
1889, Orchestral
The story of Don Juan is a famous piece of folklore that seems to have come down to us from the sixteenth century. It is the story of a man who is completely irresistible to women and takes advantage of his obvious charm and appeal to bed as many as he possibly can. However, a moral code is upheld as he is eventually dragged down to hell by a stone statue that rather rudely disrupts a dinner party to take the philanderer away.
This is a story that has always fascinated people, either as potential ‘victims’, or as the hero himself, yet Strauss used as his inspirational source not a classic rendition of the tale, but a contemporary (i.e. Romantic) one in the form of Nicolaus Lenau’s ‘Don Juan, A Dramatic Poem’.
It is clear that this would be the Romantic composer’s choice for, in this version, the Don is not merely an aristocratic bounder, but a dreamer and philosopher who, in reality, is searching for the ideal women, as he longs:
’ . . . to enjoy in one woman, all women, since he cannot possess them as individuals.’
Yet sadly he continues to meet with empty experiences, boredom, disillusionment and, finally, loathing.
The music takes a light theme that represents the Don on his way to adventure. This theme is reproduced many times as he moves from one woman to the next in search of his ideal. At one point his theme transforms into a phrase of greater nobility played on four horns, possibly to remind us that this is no common man we are dealing with, before returning to the hunt. However, the tragic end is inevitable, as the orchestra approaches a tremendous climax, only to be cut short to a terrible pause. A trumpet note completes the work.
Also sprach Zarathustra
1896, Orchestral
Made famous as the introductory music to the film ‘2001: A Space Odessy’, this work has since been thoroughly exploited in television, film and theatre for its stunning opening bars, which are instantly effective and awesome.
Strauss’s flamboyant tone poem ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ was inspired by a book so extraordinary that it might almost have been called a tone poem in its own right. The book in question was a philosophical work written by Friedrich Nietzsche in 1883, and the general public was most surprised to find someone ‘setting’ philosophy to music. Yet Strauss was drawn to Nietzsche by deeper bonds of temperament and artistic sensibility than by any system of logic.
From the eighty odd chapters of the book, Strauss chose eight that he found suggestive and inspiring, and composed the eight-part work (plus the famous introduction) between 4 February and 24 August 24 1896. After its completion he wrote to a friend, attempting to explain his work:
‘I did not intend to write philosophical music or to portray in music Nietzsche’s great work.
I meant to convey, by means of music, an idea of the development of the human race from its origin, through the various phases of its development, religious and scientific, up to [the] idea of the superman.’
The music opens with a depiction of dawn that has a startling grandeur, yet is a simple theme given out by four trumpets. The eight sections are:
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Of the Otherworldsmen
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Of the Great Yearning
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Of Joys and Passions
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The Dirge
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Of Learning
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The Convalescent
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The Dance Song
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Somnambulist’s Song
This work is famous on three counts: firstly, its opening theme is unforgettable; secondly, it is one of the most strangely inspired works that existed at the time; lastly, the final section concludes with a chord so strange that, after the first few performances, some members of the audience were left confused and somewhat disturbed.
Der Rosenklavier
1911, Opera
‘The Knight of the Rose’ is a complete operatic comedy written as a homage to Mozart, and is set in a similar style to ‘Cosi Fan Tutti’ with its elegant aristocrats. It has some of Strauss’s most delightful music.
Four Last Songs
1948, Orchestral
Strauss wrote these songs as one reflecting on the end of life with no malice or regrets. Beautiful harmonies are meltingly arranged for the orchestra.