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Richard Strauss (June 11, 1864 – September 8, 1949) was a German composer of the
late Romantic era and early modern era, particularly noted for his tone poems and
operas. He was also a noted conductor.
 Early
life
He was born on June 11, 1864, in Munich (then in the Kingdom of Bavaria, now in
Germany), the son of Franz Strauss, who was the principal horn player at the Court
Opera in Munich. He received a thorough, but conservative, musical education from
his father in his youth, writing his first music at the age of six. He continued to
write music almost until his death.
During his boyhood he had the good fortune to be able to attend orchestra
rehearsals of the Munich Court Orchestra, and he also received private instruction
in music theory and orchestration from an assistant conductor there. In 1874
Strauss heard his first Wagner operas, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser and Siegfried; the
influence of Wagner's music on Strauss's style was to be profound, but at first his
father forbade him to study it: it was not until the age of 16 that he was able to
obtain a score of Tristan und Isolde. Indeed, in the Strauss household the music of
Richard Wagner was considered inferior. Later in life, Richard Strauss said and
wrote that he deeply regretted this.
In 1882 he entered Munich University, where he studied philosophy and art history,
but not music. Nevertheless, he left a year later to go to Berlin, where he studied
briefly before securing a post as assistant conductor to Hans von Bülow, taking
over from him at Munich when von Bülow resigned in 1885. His compositions around
this time were quite conservative, in the style of Robert Schumann or Felix
Mendelssohn, true to his father's teachings. His Horn Concerto No. 1 (1882 – 1883)
is representative of this period and is still regularly played.
Richard Strauss married soprano Pauline de Ahna on September 10, 1894. She was
famous for being bossy, ill-tempered, eccentric, and outspoken, but the marriage
was happy, and she was a great source of inspiration to him. Throughout his life,
from his earliest songs to the final Four Last Songs of 1948, he would prefer the
soprano voice to all others. Indeed, nearly every major operatic role that Strauss
wrote is for a soprano.
Tone
poems
Strauss's style began to change when he met Alexander Ritter, a noted composer and
violinist, and the husband of one of Richard Wagner's nieces. It was Ritter who
persuaded Strauss to abandon the conservative style of his youth, and begin writing
tone poems; he also introduced Strauss to the essays of Richard Wagner and the
writings of Schopenhauer. Strauss went on to conduct one of Ritter's operas, and
later Ritter wrote a poem based on Strauss's own Tod und Verklärung.
This newly found interest resulted in what is widely regarded as Strauss' first
piece to show his mature personality, the tone poem Don Juan. When this was
premiered in 1889, half of the audience cheered while the other half booed. Strauss
knew he had found his own musical voice, saying "I now comfort myself with the
knowledge that I am on the road I want to take, fully conscious that there never
has been an artist not considered crazy by thousands of his fellow men." Strauss
went on to write a series of other tone poems, including Aus Italien (1886), Tod
und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration, 1888 – 89), Till Eulenspiegels lustige
Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, 1894 – 95), Also sprach Zarathustra
(Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1896, the opening section of which is well known today for
its use in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey), Don Quixote (1897), Ein
Heldenleben (A Hero's Life, 1897 – 98), Sinfonia Domestica (Domestic Symphony 1902
– 03) and Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony 1911 – 15).
Opera
Around the end of the 19th century, Strauss turned his attention to opera. His
first two attempts in the genre, Guntram in 1894 and Feuersnot in 1901 were
critical failures. However, in 1905 he produced Salome (based on the play by Oscar
Wilde), and the reaction was as passionate and extreme as it had been with Don
Juan. When it opened at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, there was such a
public outcry that it was closed after just one performance. Doubtless, much of
this was due to the subject matter, and negative publicity about Wilde's "immoral"
behavior. However, some of the negative reactions may have stemmed from Strauss's
use of dissonance, rarely heard then at the opera house. Elsewhere the opera was
highly successful and Strauss reputedly financed his house in
Garmisch-Partenkirchen completely from the revenues generated by the opera,
although this claim is more a reflection of his view that composers being
adequately - and financially - rewarded for their work rather than a precise
assessment of the opera's success. After all, Strauss was also starting to be well
paid for his conducting assignments.
Strauss' next opera was Elektra, which took his use of dissonance even further. It
was also the first opera in which Strauss collaborated with the poet Hugo von
Hofmannsthal. The two would work together on numerous other occasions. For these
later works, however, Strauss moderated his harmonic language somewhat, with the
result that works such as Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose, 1910) were
great public successes. Strauss continued to produce operas at regular intervals
until 1940. These included Ariadne auf Naxos (1912), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1918),
Intermezzo (1923), Die ägyptische Helena (1927), and Arabella (1932), all in
collaboration with Hofmannsthal; and Die schweigsame Frau (1934), with Stefan Zweig
as librettist; Friedenstag (1936) and Daphne (1937) (libretto by Joseph Gregor and
Zweig); Die Liebe der Danae (1940) (with Gregor) and Capriccio (libretto by Clemens
Krauss) (1941).
Strauss also made live-recording player piano music rolls for the Hupfeld system
all of which survive today and can be heard.
Solo and
chamber works
Strauss's solo and chamber works include early compositions for piano solo in a
conservative harmonic style, many of which are lost; a rarely heard string quartet
(opus 2); the famous violin sonata in Eb which he wrote in 1887; as well as a
handful of late pieces. There are only six works in his entire output dating from
after 1900 which are for chamber ensembles, and four are arrangements of portions
of his operas. His last chamber work, an Allegretto in E for violin and piano,
dates from 1940.
Solo
instrument with orchestra
Much more extensive was his output of works for solo instrument or instruments with
orchestra. The most famous include two horn concerti, which are still part of the
standard repertoire of most horn soloists, a concerto for violin, Burleske for
Piano and Orchestra, the tone poem Don Quixote, for cello, viola and orchestra, a
late concerto for oboe (inspired by a request from an American soldier and oboist,
John DeLancie, whom he met after the war), and the duet concertino for bassoon and
clarinet, which was one of his last works (1947). Strauss admitted that the Duett
Concertino had an extra-musical "plot", in which the clarinet represented a
princess and the bassoon a bear; when the two dance together, the bear transforms
into a prince.
Strauss and
the Nazis
There is much controversy surrounding Strauss' role in Germany after the Nazi Party
came to power. Some say that he was constantly apolitical, and never cooperated
with the Nazis completely. Others point out that he was an official of the Third
Reich. Several noted musicians disapproved of his conduct while the Nazis were in
power, among them the conductor Arturo Toscanini, who famously said, "To Strauss
the composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again."
In November 1933, without any consultation with Strauss, Joseph Goebbels appointed
him to the post of president of the Reichsmusikkammer, the State Music Bureau.
Strauss decided to keep his post but to remain apolitical, a decision which has
been criticized as naïve, but perhaps the most sensible one considering the
circumstances. While in this position he composed the Olympische Hymne for the 1936
Olympics, and also befriended some high-ranking Nazis. Evidently his intent was to
protect his daughter-in-law Alice, who was Jewish, from persecution. In 1935,
Strauss was forced to resign his position as Reichsmusikkammer president, after
refusing to remove from the playbill for Die schweigsame Frau the name of the
Jewish librettist, his friend Stefan Zweig. He had written Zweig a supportive
letter, insulting to the Nazis, which was intercepted by the Gestapo. By the time
he conducted the Olympische Hymne at the Berlin Olympic Stadium in 1936, he was no
longer president of the Reichsmusikkammer.
His decision to produce Friedenstag in 1938, a one-act opera set in a besieged
fortress during the Thirty Years' War – essentially a hymn to peace and a thinly
veiled criticism of the Third Reich – during a time when an entire nation was
preparing for war, has been seen as extraordinarily brave. With its contrasts
between freedom and enslavement, war and peace, light and dark, this work has been
considered more related to Fidelio than to any of Strauss's other recent operas.
Production ceased shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939.
When his daughter-in-law Alice was placed under house arrest in Garmisch in 1938,
Strauss used his connections in Berlin, for example the Berlin Intendant Heinz
Tietjen, to secure her safety; in addition, there are also suggestions that he
attempted to use his official position to protect other Jewish friends and
colleagues. Unfortunately Strauss left no specific records or commentary regarding
his feeling about Nazi anti-Semitism, so most of the reconstruction of his
motivations during the period are conjectural. While most of his actions during the
1930s were midway between outright collaboration and dissidence, it was only in his
music that the dissident streak was, in retrospect, more obvious, such as in the
pacifist drama Friedenstag.
In 1942 Strauss moved with his family back to Vienna, where Alice and her children
could be protected by Baldur von Schirach, the Gauleiter of Vienna. Unfortunately
even he was unable to protect Strauss's Jewish relatives completely; in early 1944,
while Strauss was away, Alice and the composer's son were abducted by the Gestapo
and imprisoned for two nights. Only Strauss's personal intervention at this point
was able to save them, and he was able to take the two of them back to Garmisch,
where they remained, under house arrest, until the end of the war.
Strauss completed the composition of Metamorphosen, a work for 23 solo strings, in
1945. The piece mourned the destruction of Germany wrought by World War II, but
also encouraged the continued examination of Strauss's sympathy for Nazi Germany.
It is now generally accepted that Metamorphosen was composed, specifically, to
mourn the bombing of Strauss's favorite opera house; and generally, to reflect on
the damage caused by the war to the German culture and aesthetic.
The final
years
In 1948, Strauss wrote his last work, Vier letzte Lieder ("Four last songs") for
soprano and orchestra, reportedly with Kirsten Flagstad in mind. She certainly gave
the first performance and it was recorded, but the quality of the recording is
poor. It is available as a historic CD release for enthusiasts. All his life he had
produced lieder, but these are among his best known (alongside "Zueignung",
"Cäcilie", "Morgen" and "Allerseelen"). When compared to the work of younger
composers, Strauss's harmonic and melodic language was considered somewhat
old-fashioned by this time. Nevertheless, the songs have always been popular with
audiences and performers. Strauss himself declared in 1947, "I may not be a
first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer!"
Richard Strauss died on September 8, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany at
the age of 85.
Recordings
Richard Strauss made a number of recordings of his music, as well as German and
Austrian composers. Harold C. Schonberg in The Great Conductors (New York:Simon and
Schuster, 1967) says that, while Strauss was a very fine conductor, he often put
scant effort into his recordings. Some have suggested that Strauss made recordings
simply to make money. The reissue of electrical recordings Strauss made in 1926-29
on CD by Koch Legacy, Preiser, and Deutsche Grammophon has created renewed debate
about whether Strauss really cared about his recordings. Many of these recordings
were originally issued by Polydor, with Brunswick handling American
distribution.
The 1929 performances of Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan with the Berlin State Opera
Orchestra have long been considered the best of his early electrical recordings;
even the original 78-rpm discs had superior sound for their time and the
performances were top-notch and quite exciting at times, despite a noticeable
mistake by the French horn soloist in the famous opening passage of Till
Eulenspiegel. The breaks for side changes, necessitated by the 78-rpm process, are
rather curious because Strauss actually repeated a few notes each time the music
resumed; careful editing for LP and CD reissues resolved the repetitions as well as
the obvious interruptions in the music.
Schonberg focused primarily on Strauss' recordings of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G
minor and Beethoven's seventh symphonies, as well as noting that Strauss played a
breakneck version of Beethoven's ninth symphony in about 45 minutes. Concerning the
Beethoven seventh symphony, Schonberg wrote, "There is almost never a ritard or a
change in experession or nuance. The slow movement is almost as fast as the
following vivace; and the last movement, with a big cut in it, is finished in four
minutes, twenty-five seconds. (It should run between seven and eight minutes.)"
Schonberg also complained that the Mozart symphony had "no force, no charm, no
inflection, with a metronomic rigidity."
Peter Gutmann's 1994 review for classicalnotes.com says the performances of the
Beethoven fifth and seventh symphonies, as well as Mozart's last three symphonies,
are actually quite good, even if they are sometimes unconventional. "The Koch CDs,"
Gutman wrote, "represent all of Strauss's recordings of works by other composers.
(The best of his readings of his own famous tone poems and other music are
collected on DGG 429 925-2, 3 CDs.) It is true, as the critics suggest, that the
readings forego overt emotion, but what emerges instead is a solid sense of
structure, letting the music speak convincingly for itself. It is also true that
Strauss's tempos are generally swift, but this, too, contributes to the structural
cohesion and in any event is fully in keeping with our modern outlook in which
speed is a virtue and attention spans are defined more by MTV clips and news sound
bites than by evenings at the opera and thousand page novels."
Koch Legacy has also released recordings of overtures by Gluck, Weber, Cornelius
and Wagner. The preference for German and Austrian composers in Germany in the
1920s through the 1940s was typical of the German nationalism that existed after
World War I. Strauss clearly capitalized on national pride for the great
German-speaking composers.
One of the more interesting of Strauss' recordings was perhaps the first complete
performance of his An Alpine Symphony, made in 1941 and later released by EMI,
because Strauss used the full complement of percussion instruments required in this
spectacular symphony. The intensity of the performance rivaled that of the digital
recording Herbert von Karajan made many years later with the Berlin Philharmonic
Orchestra.
There were many other recordings, including some taken from radio broadcasts and
concerts, during the 1930s and early 1940s. Undoubtedly, the sheer volume of
recorded performances would yield some definitive performances from a very capable
and rather forward-looking conductor.
In 1944 Strauss celebrated his 80th birthday and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic
in recordings of his major orchestral works, as well as the seldom-heard
Schlagobers (Whipped Cream) ballet music. He actually put more feeling into these
performances than his earlier recordings, which were recorded on the Magnetophon
tape recording equipment (developed primarily by the Germans to record Hitler's
speeches for radio broadcasts). Vanguard Records later issued the recordings on
LPs. Some of these recordings have been reissued on CDs by Preiser; given their
remarkable fidelity and their above average performances, these performances
deserve to be heard.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Richard
Strauss - Manifesting Generator - Biography
