LIVIN G MA ST E R S O F M U S I C EDITED BY RO SA N EWMARCH

RIC H A RD STRAUSS GLUCK OPERA A STUDY OF WAGNER WAGNER The Music of the Mas ters

! ” ELGAR The M usic of the Masters ) MUSICAL STUDIES H UGO WOLF

ETC . ETC.

S T R f ! ; Y E R N E ST N E W M A N W I T H A P E RS O N A L NOTE BY ALFRED KALISCH

PREFACE

I REGRET that I am unable to give to this volume the pers onal t ouch that is one of the

As obj ects of the series in which it appears .

’ D t r aus s s n I have not the honour of r . S acquai t n ance , I am almost wholly ig orant of his private personality and the det ails of his daily life beyond the fact that he writes his mus ic on ruled paper I can give none of thos e glimps es into the interior t hat are s o fascinating to all

’ n s s On stude ts of great men s live and work .

s n n the the other hand , the ab e ce of eve slightes t acquaintance with the subj ect of t he

is not t it s ns book wi hout compensatio , in that it makes a more independent crit ical att it ude

s t o n po sible the wr iter . Some interesti g par ticulars of Richard St raus s the man will be n in n fou d the Introduction , which my frie d

Mr n n n con . Kalisch has bee ki d e ough to

tribute to the volume . vi RICHARD STRAUSS

No one can be more cons cious than myself of the many t hings t hat have been left unsaid

s tt the nt t n in thi li le book , many i eres i g points

’ in St r aus s s work t hat have not been dwelt

can n t t upon . I o ly plead hat the subjec is an

s h enormou one and t e book a very s mall one .

And as s s s w as s o the pace at my di po al limited , I thought it better to confine mys elf to t he ’ — broader aspects of St r aus s s works not to at tempt to describe any of them in detail

s n s O s (beyond telling briefly the to e of the pera ) , but t o trace the main lines of his intellectual

s t ndi and mu ical developmen , and to i cate some of the new aesthetic problems that are

h s G s nt can raised by i work . uide in ple y h be had t o t e larger works thems elves . In

E n s n s gli h , the best of these are the a alyse by M t ’ H r . Kalisch and Mr . Pit in the Queen s all

t l s s programme books . S i l more copiou analyse G in are to be had in erman , the excellent ” s Mus ikfiihr er O ernfiihr er eries of and p , n publis hed by Mes s rs . Seema n of Leipzig . Students who wish t o pursue further the critical study of Straus s may turn t o Gustav

’ B s s s recher Richard Strau , eine mono

” ’ s E n s graphi che Skizze , rich Urba Richard PREFACE vii

Strauss (in the series of Moderne Es says

’ zur Kunst und Litt er atur the same writer s ” lively booklet , Strauss contra Wagner , the

Richard Strauss , eine Charakterskizze of

’ Seidl s Arthur Seidl and Wilhelm Klatte , Der moderne Geist in der deutschen Ton ” ’ M Als o s r ach kunst , Hans erian s booklet on p

’ Zarathustr a E , ugen Schmitz s Richard Strauss

M s als usikdramatiker , the article on Straus

’ ” Mr H in . James uneker s Overtones , and i ass m. the j ournals of the civilized world , p There are at least three admirable books

in w S alome deal g ith , each of them with special ’ — r G excellencies of its own M . Lawrence ilman s

’ M Kuffer ath s (John Lane , London) , aurice

’ Fischbacher Taubmann s ( , Paris) , and Otto

Fiir s tner ( , Berlin) .

E . . N

RIC H ARD STRAUSS : T H E M AN

LI KE all dominant personalities , Strauss pos sesses in a marked degree the gift of inspiring strong admiration and creating for himself enthusiastic apostles . That he is sometimes not overpleased at their missionary zeal is shown by the story told (with What truth it is impossible to discover) of his remark to a

r : ve y insistent admirer , who said Master , B ” you are the uddha of modern music , and to whom he answered I do not know about ” is that but I do know what the pest . It is , of course , part and parcel of his modernity

n an obj ectionable word , but nothi g else ex presses the idea so well—that he should have a complex mind and be prone to introspect ion n if he had not been born with it , his traini g and his surroundings would have created it . But there is a point at which he grows im

of - an d patient self analysis , at bottom there ix x RICHARD STRAUSS are in him the simplicity and directness which must be the mainspring of all considerable creative activities in all branches of human endeavour . He was once asked what were the tendencies of modern music , and whither he thought his own music was leading him ; and his only an swer was : Ask the writers on music- not the writers of music . This answer is instructive , and has a distinct bearing on his whole artistic — creed . It means , of course unless it is a mere — heedless epigram , which is not probable that he recognizes that there is at the root of all musical inspiration something unconscious which the creative artist himself cannot account for and in s o far it involves a refutation of those who argue that the doctrine of programme music is incompatible with the presence of any super human spiritual element in the art . It is in n seemi g , but only seeming , contradiction to the well-known saying attributed to him There is no such thing as Abstract Music ;

~ s there is good music and bad music . If it i good , it means something ; and then it is ” Programme Music . The best exposition of his artistic creed is that contained in his preface THE MAN xi

to the series of booklets on music published by

Co M . Bard , arquardt , and , to which reference is made elsewhere but it contains nothing new for those who have conversed with him

on such topics . One of the cardinal dogmas in his musical

of M m faith is his love ozart , who he claims as a modern in the sense that his music ex presses ideas which appeal to men of this day ’ more than Beethoven s work . His interpreta tions of Mozart are criticized in some quarters as being too modern , because they impart into his compositions these very ideas but this is not the place to discuss the justice of such strictures . It is more to the point to protest that it is unjust to say , as is so often said , that his love for Mozart is a mere pose . Any one who has been in his society during a good perform ance of a Mozartian masterpiece can vouch for the sincerity of his worship , at any rate . The writer remembers his saying once , after he had heard the Jupiter Symphony with rapt atten tion We can still all of us learn something ” from that . In keeping with this is his advice , habitually given to all very young aspirants who come to him with portentous Symphonic b xii RICHARD STRAUSS

‘ Poems and tell him that Tod a nd Ver klzira ng and the Symphoma Domestica have been their

’ models Go home and study Haydn s Sym

n s n n pho ie and the the Sympho ies of Mozart ,

’ ” and come to me again in two years time .

Like all great innovators , he has thoroughly mastered the work of his predecessors and there is no doubt that he could wr ite a cor rect and learned fugue as well as any pro fess or if he wanted to ; that is to say , if it should ever happen that a fugue should be the n best means of expressi g what he had to say . The score of Also spr ach Zar athustr a is suffi cient proof, if proof is needed . In a discussion — on form he once said or quoted with approval — the saying that till the time of Liszt and Wagner the utmost that was permitted to a composer was to ask himself How much expression can I put into this or that form whereas the modern composer says to himself How can I modify the form so as to make it the best possible way of expressing all I want This is perhaps the place to mention two little incidents which show his attitude towards

he n t unconscious remi iscences in his works . THE MAN xiii

After the first performance of the Domestic Symphony in London some friends pointed out to him that a passage at the beginning of the Nocturne was identical with the beginning of

’ the well-known Gondoliers song in the first

’ ” book of Mendelssohn s Songs without Words . Those who were present at the conversation could have no doubt that the discovery was

w as a complete surprise to him . Similarly he quite taken aback when at one of the orchestral rehearsals of Salome at Dresden a member of the band (who was an Austrian) pointed out to him that one of the love-motifs is one of the cavalry calls in the Austrian army , which he s mu t have heard hundreds of times . One may W compare with this the anecdote of agner ,

n Die M eister sin er who , when he was rehearsi g g , and came to the passage m the third act when

: F in Sachs says to Walther Mein reund , holder ” M Jugendzeit , remarked , y friends , this is n n ll certai ly Nicolai , but I never k ew it ti to ” n day , mea ing that the phrase is identical with the principal melody of the overture to The

M err Wives o Winds or wi y f , th which he must have been perfectly familiar when he wr ote it . In his work Strauss is fastidiously metho di xiv RICHARD STRAUSS

- cal, and his writing table is a model of neat ness which would put to shame the most precise of business men . All his manuscripts and his sketch books are arranged , indexed , and docketed with the most scrupulous care , and his autographs are miracles of cleamess and musical calligraphy . His wife once said to the present writer You may say what

’ you like about his music ; but if you don t praise his handwriting he will be cross with ” off you . He dashes his songs at great speed often he has composed and written a whole song during the intervals between the acts of an opera he is conducting but he never works Hi l at his larger works at odd moments . s usua plan is to compose in the country in the

m Mar uar dt st ein summer for erly it was at q , now it is in his new house , which is still G more solitary , near armisch , so solitary , that he whimsically said building operations were interfered with by the chamois which came to l inspect the site . His method is to al ow himself a complete rest for a few weeks

He and then to begin regular work . retires

every day immediately after breakfast , which

and is early , the writing of necessary letters , xvi RICHARD STRAUSS

e t stify . This love of all that is new and of this

nt and s ce ury is part parcel of him elf , and is not n s a mere accide tal accretion , as ome would

He is n have us believe . a convi ced believer in

U n and the berme sch , respects all who , though

s they may be his opponents , di play the quali

s H a ties connoted by thi word . ence his d mir ation G for the erman Emperor , who is , n i tellectually and artistically , at the opposite n pole , and though they can ever agree on any

s n mu ical topic . The relatio ship between the two is well characterized by an anecdote which may be given here for the sake of completeness , though it is very familiar . After a perform ance of an Opera of Gluck the Emperor asked Strauss whether he did not think such - music vastly superior to modern music drama . When he said that he could hardly be expected

s s n n E to agree to uch e time ts , the mperor turned to the res t of the company and s aid See what a snake I have been warming in my bosom After that Strauss was for some time known in Berlin as the Hofbus en

s n i. e . n chla ge ( Court Bosom S ake) .

’ One trait in St r aus s s character impresses it s elf on those who s ee him at close quarters on THE MAN xvii

s important occasion , and that is his extra

n of ordi ary power keeping , or seeming to keep , abs olutely calm when everybody else is on

tenterhooks . Of course , it is only by dint of a f considerable e fort of will that he manages it , but it is none the less striking to see him in

’ the artists room at a concert , when some work of his has thrown a large audience into

and a ferment of excitement , sitting down talking about things in general as if the whole

business had no further concern for him . On these occasions he often finds an outlet for his superfluous vitality by sitting down and working steadily through the large pile of

autograph albums which generally await him . There is no point at which he has been more fiercely attacked than his relation to the ffi material rewards of his art . It is very di cult

! ’ r o to clea ne s mind of cant on this matter , and it is fatally easy to obtain unthinking applause (from the very people who pride themselves on the superiority of their intellect) by raising ” this cry of commercialism . Strauss is , at any

rate , quite frank , and without holding a brief l on one side or the other , one will do wel to

consider his view of the question . He always xviii RICHARD STRAUSS

says that he is anxious , as quickly as the fates ll wi allow, to acquire a capital which will enable him to live without holding any official post and devote himself to composition and

literature . He does not say what the amount

‘ 15 ohe to be , but presumably it is a fairly large . It must be remembered that he was born with

a wealthy grandfather, and has been used to

comfortable nay , luxurious surroundings

from his childhood . This is no more his fault than it is the fault of other composers that their grandfathers were poor or worthless .

Besides , other musicians have had parents w connected ith business or finance , and have inherited business instincts . One would have

’ more respect for the outcry against St r aus s s monetary successes if one had any sort of confidence that those who protest most ve hemently would ever refuse a good fee if they had the chance . Not that they are to blame

all for it is difficult to see why musicians , of people , should be expected to do everything for the love of Art or the good of mankind . It

’ n n is all very well, too , to hold up o e s ha ds in horror because Strauss was paid £1 750 for the Domestic Symphony and s ay that Beethoven THE MAN xix got a paltry twenty pounds for a great sym

or phony , to simulate noble indignation because

S alome brings in so many hundreds a year .

Those who pay him have not been the losers , at any rate , and do not complain . On the other

Traumdar eh die d mer a n hand , he sold g for thirty shillings , and the publisher is said to have made £400 out of it in the first two years .

Besides , after all , the unholy profits of the Domestic Symphony and S alome combined will probably never amount to a tenth part of those won by S oldier s in the Par k or The

M erry Widow Waltz. One of the favourite weapons used against him has been that he once in America conducted a concert in a room above a large store in the afternoon while the ordinary business of the establishment was going on downstairs . Prostitution of Art was the politest thing said about it . The attack has been renewed within the last few weeks , and he was induced to reply , and what he said is instructive . He said that , as a matter of fact , the room was , or was turned into , an excellent concert room with very good acoustic properties , and that it was stipulated beforehand that all traces of bus mes s should xx RICHARD STRAUSS .

. F one be removed urther , he had of the best

s S and orchestra in the tates at his disposal , better opportunities for rehearsal than were granted by some of the most prominent

n no artistic institutio s . Even if this had t been

s o n , he co tinues , he might well say , as was said by an eminent actress who was taken to task for appearing in a hippodrome Where I ” fir s t - appear , there it is a class theatre . Every composer of any importance is accused of not doing enough to help his less prosperous e colleagu s , and of j ealousy of those equally

successful . Strauss has not escaped , and the

is as charge true , or untrue , in his case ( as in d most others . But all English people shoul remember with gratitude his almost impas s ioned advocacy of Elgar in the days when England had not yet learned to admire the

Dr eam o Ge ti s H f r on a . is remarks in his speech at the banquet after the Lower Rhenis h Festival at Dusseldorf in 1 902 were no mere - idle after dinner talk . He spoke them know

in e g full well that they were , in a sens , spoken

ex cathedr a and , that they would be severely criticized by his German colleagues as un t t At t t E pa rio ic . ha time hardly any nglish THE MAN xxi authority had dared to speak so enthusias ti cally of Elgar and his work . In appearance Strauss is scrupulously neat — always not in the leas t like the traditional musician—without being in any sense fashion able , and his face is quite unlike that of any other great composer . Indeed, some of his critics have been heard to say that there could be no real music behind a forehead 50 round and prominent . In his speech he clings tenaciously to the broad Doric of his native Munich ; and though (in F euer snot) he has been the partner in a violent satire on his - r fellow townsmen , he esents attacks on them from other quarters , especially from North G ermans . The typical Bavarian naturally looks on the average Prussian much as a Home D Rule M. P. looks on the garrison of ublin Castle and though Strauss is too diplomatic to say much , his friends would not be surprised to hear that he agreed with his legendary fellow countryman who said that Berlin would be beautiful if there were not so many Prussians in it . ALFRED KALISCH

ILLUSTRATIONS

I IN 1 0 F OM A . RICHARD STRAUSS 9 7 ( R

P O OG PH BY M Y B L F r ontis iece H T RA E ER, ER IN) p

2 M H . RICHARD STRAUSS HIS OT ER

RICHARD STRAUSS AS A CHILD

RICHARD STRAUSS AS A BOY

RICHARD STRAUSS AS A BOY

RICHARD STRAUSS AS A BOY RICHARD STRAUSS AS STUDENT RICHARD STRAUSS AS A STUDENT

RICHARD STRAUSS’ COUNTRY HOUSE AT MAR UAR DTSTEI N TH E Q , WITH ZUGSPITZE

’ I O O Y O . RICHARD STRAUSS C UNTR H USE AT MARQ UA RDTSTEIN

F I I . RICHARD STRAUSS AND HIS ATHER

R I C H A R D ST RA USS

CHAPTER I

LIFE

RICHARD STRAUSS has for so long been the subj ect of heated discussion in the musical circles Of two continents that it is hard to realize that he has not yet attained his forty fourth year . Thirteen years ago , at an age when Beethoven had got only as far as his unadventurous first symphony , and Wagner was merely laying the foundations of his s tyle

! F n D n in Rienzi and The lyi g utchma , Strauss!S Till Eulenspiegel and Also sprach Zar athustr a had already marked him out as a revolutionary of the most daring type and one needs only to recall the titles Of some of

—Dori uixote Eiu Heldeulebeu his later works Q , ,

S m honia Domestica Salome—t o be the y p , and B 2 RICHARD STRAUSS reminded that around each of them has raged a critical battle as furious as any that was n fought about the maturer works of Wag er . He has Often been as unfortunate in his friends as he has been fortunate in his enemies ; he has been foolishly abused by critics Of the

E Hanslick type of the late duard , whose con d emnation of any piece of modern music could almost be taken as a certificate of its excel lence ; and he has been admired with equal n foolishness by others , who were wilfully bli d t o s some of the serious defect of his work , but who used him as a stick with which to beat a contrasted form of art which they disliked .

’ All this commotion at least testifies to Str auss s

the s ignificance in the history of music , for whole musical world does not form itself into m two armed ca ps , breathing fire and slaughter

o an Of n fir s t at each ther, over y man less tha

Of rate importance . And a rough measure the effect he makes even on those who dislike him most may be had in the violence of the

Of epithets they hurl at his head , some which take us back to the good old days when the Meistersinger overture was called an ugly r of a iot dissonance , and the opera itself LIFE 3 r boneless tone mollusc , and when Pa sifal re minded delicate-souled German critics of

n n s n the howls of a dog u dergoi g vivi ectio . To the expert in the history of j ournalis tic n obj urgation , epithets of this ki d tell their own n tale ; if a bundle of them , relati g to some one of whom he otherwise knew nothing , were brought to him , he could almost reconstruct the artist from them as a scientist can recon struct the form of an animal from the evidence n W of a few scattered bo es . hen a certain

s n dramatic critic , for example , called Ib e

- n s a muck ferreti g dog , the skilled in the e

n and n matters , heari g the phrase knowi g the t critical record of the au hor of it , could at once understand the ideals of Ibsen without

’ ’ n c s sit of r eadin the e e y g a line of him . And when we find Strauss being thrown into the - m same plague pit with Ibsen and other mode s , and the same kind of burial service being

s imprecated over him , that in it elf is enough to prove his main offence to be that he is a progressive , and so to arouse the sympathy of

0 one a many people for him . N h s yet com piled a Str aus s ean S chimpflexihou on the lines of the one that was compiled about Wagner , 4 RICHARD STRAUSS — an entertaining collection of all the terms of abus e that have been s howered upon him ; but when it is compiled it will make agreeable

n can readi g for posterity . Already we smile n at some of the earlier j udgme ts upon Strauss . From a book published by a well-known American critic only four years ago I cull the

e caulifl owers of all following choic rhetoric ,

’ St r auss s prompted , be it observed , by three of early works that are now accepted in e very concert room as blandly as the Tannhauser

' Tod uud Ver klar un Dou uau overture , g, j , and

s ie el - Till Euleu b . n g g The last named , accordi g

‘ in to our critic , is a study musical depiction of wandering vulgarity , of j ocular obscenity , a vast and coruscating j umble of instrumental cackles about things unfit to be mentioned

St r auss es With Ibsens , Maeterlincks , and the indignant prophet goes on , writing with c his foot on the loud pedal all the time , plu k ing like soulless ghouls upon the snapping n n t n heartstri gs of huma i y , treati g the heart as a monochord for the scientific measurement

f n n o i tervals of pain , and finally poki g with their Skeleton fingers in the ashes of the tomb to see if they could not find a single smoul

6 RICHARD STRAUSS

are apt to do when their rhetoric gets into t n heir head , our author has a fi al fling at

Till E ulens ie el G n G p g , arga tua of ermany , noIS ome n s n Till , a ty , rollicki g , with the Whirligig s cale of a yellow clarinet in his brain and the beer-house rhythm of a pint pot ” is And s n in h heart . yet schoolgirl liste with

n n s and n e j oyme t to the e foul pestile tial works , and , what is worse , take their mothers to hear them

s n Thi wild and malodorous la guage , taken from an es say by a critic who can write s en / s ibl n on other y e ough topics , is quoted here not s o much for it s own sake as to give t he reader an idea of the frenzy of opposition that Straus s rais es in some worthy minds.

the As I have said , very violence of the lan guage is in itself an evidence of the disturbing effect he has had upon modern music and musicians ; the pole must have gone very deep into the stagnant pond to bring so much

And the mud as this to the s urface . peculiar wording of the charges against Strauss indi cates the new impuls es he has brought into

m SIc t u . When dramatic cri ics of a certain type accuse a new author of immorality we LIFE 7

may be sure that all he has really done is to be deeply moved by certain sad aspects of human nature and human life , and to try to communicate to his fellow-men his own sense of the pity that such evil should be .

And when: composers like Wagner and Strauss are accused of outraging humanity in their

e music , we may be sure that it is only becaus they have felt more of the sting or the sweet ness or the humour of life than their fore~

n t o run ers did , and have tried express it all in be their music . We are not at present , it noted , passing any j udgment , favourable or unfavourable , upon the actual work of

al Strauss . That work must fin ly stand or

v e fall in virtue of what it does , not in irtu of

s a the what it aims at doing that is to y , if expression itself is false or the architecture bad , the composer cannot fall back upon a

a s ple of good intentions . It may be a de ir able thing to bring music into closer touch with actual than the great classical master s (life — have done that line of development , indeed , was one that music was bound to follow in our own day but if the work is not beauti fully conceived and strongly wrought it will 8 RICHARD STRAUSS

w o not endure . The men h lead the multitude to a new Pisgah do not always enter the pro mis ed in land themselves . They may live history , as Liszt , for example , does , less for what they have achieved than for what they n n n have made it possible , by fli gi g ope the gates , for other people to achieve . The opinion of those who regard Strauss as merely - a charlatan and a poseur, a self conscious

n manufacturer of ugli ess and eccentricity , may be put aside as not worth consideration . But those who are sympathetically interested in his work and in the musical development for which it stands may reasonably ask whether he is one of the great creators or only one of the great emancipators ; whether his music will keep its interest for the ear and ul ill the so of future generations , or w simply , like that of Monteverde or that of Philipp

Emanuel Bach , be a historical link between t two greater phases of musical hought . This n question has , in fact , been asked by ma y

O n thoughtful bservers . In the followi g pages we shall try to s ee which way the evidence points . LIFE 9

’ Straus s s F n 26 father, ra z Strauss (born

F s ebruary , was the fir t horn player in

n and the Mu ich Court Orchestra , the author of

n H e several studies for the instrume t . was

a a and an rtist of exception l ability , Specially M famous for the beauty of his phrasing . y

s father, Richard Strau s once said , was , as

regards beauty and volume of tone , perfection

of phrasing , and technique , one of the most

notable of horn players . In the light of the

revolutionary tendencies exhibited by his son, it is interesting to learn that Franz Strauss

was an orthodox conservative musician , who - never got over his early anti Wagnerian bias .

s Wagner him elf was well aware of this bias ,

and once , it is said , after a performance of one

of his operas , in which the hornist had played

even more exquisitely than usual , remarked banteringly that Strauss could not have played the music SO beautifully had he been - a . real anti Wagnerian to which Strauss merely replied doggedly that that had ” n nothing to do with it . He married Josephi e ,

G Ps c or r the daughter of eorg h , the well M known brewer of unich beer . Their son

1 1 1 86 Richard was born June , 4 ; a younger 1 0 RICHARD STRAUSS

the sister Johanna , to whom some of com k n poser s wor s are dedicated , came i to the

1 86 world 9 June , 7 . Richard ’ s musical ability showed itself at

He n a very early age . had already begu to

n at n play the pia o four, his mother bei g his first tutor at Six he composed a Schneider polka in the accommodating key of C maj or , — his tiny brain probably being unequal at the

t n —and time to the s rai of flats and sharps , a

1 8 0—1 8 n Christmas song . From 7 74 he atte ded an elementary school at Munich ; here he worked hard at the technique of the piano

n 1 8 and at that of the violi . In 74 he entered G n at the ymnasium , where he remained u til

1 88 F Uni 2 . rom there he proceeded to the v n versity of Munich , lea i g this , however , in

I n t e s e the following year . h mid t of his oth r studies he was receiving a careful musical

F 1 8 1 880 education . rom 75 to he had a n thorough grounding in harmony , cou ter

n Hofka ell poi t , and instrumentation from p F meister . W . Meyer , to whom later on he dedicated the Serenade for wind instruments

s that was publi hed as opus 7 . In the next o c mpositions of his of which we hear , the pale LIFE 1 1 domestic glories of the Schneid erpolka and the Christmas song are left far behind ; we read of a chorus from the Electra of Sopho cles and a Festival Chorus being performed

Pr iifun s - at a g Konzert at the Gymnasium . By th e time he had reached his sixteenth year n he had become somethi g of a public character .

In 1 880 M F a singer at the unich opera, rau

Me s enheim y , sang three of his songs in public .

1 6 M 1 881 e n t On arch , , the B n o Walter Quar et , n n at one of their co certs , played his Stri g

on Quartet in A maj or (op . while the 3oth of the same month Hermann Levi gave

o D mindr a perf rmance of his Symphony in ,

has a work in four movements , that hitherto il remained unpublished . All this wh e his t r aImn an n g , as y one , i deed , can see from his

on early compositions , had been severely l orthodox lines . Strauss himse f has told us

‘ 1 88 when e a that until 5, h made the cquaint ance of Alexander Ritter , he had been brought ” n up in a strictly classical way , on othing but

H M and B aydn , ozart , eethoven , and that only 1 88 via M after 5 did he attain , endelssohn , to

C . hopin and Schumann , and then to Brahms The evidence of this is writ large on all his 1 2 RICHARD STRAUSS

a : Fuu Clavier stuche . e rlier works the f , op 3

S . the Pianoforte onata , op 5 6 V n a . the Sonata for iolo cello and Pi no , op 1 882— i ( 3) the Serenade for w nd instruments, - 8 1 88 n . . 2 V 0 op 7 ( 3) the iolin Co certo , p 1 882 d ( the Stimmungsbil er for piano ,

1 8 — op . 9 ( 8 2 3) and the Concerto for French : 1 1 1 88 - horn , op ( 3 4) After leaving the University Strauss spent

1 88 — n the winter of 3 4 in Berli , where , as at M n u ich , he was unusually fortunate in getting his youthful works performed . A Concert

’ Overture in C minor (s till unpublished) was played by the Court Orchestra under Radecke . In Berlin he attracted the attention of Hans

B iilow ma von , who conceived for the young n one of those sudden enthusiasms in which the

He career of Bulow was so prolific . placed

’ Str auss s Serenade on the programmes of his M tour with the einingen Orchestra . Besides

S a s encouraging trauss a composer, he seems to have realized that he had a gift for conduct Biil ’ . 1 88 ow s ing In the spring of 5, at invita tion , Strauss conducted , at a concert of the

M e M - einingen Orch stra in unich , a four move

of r ment Suite his own for wind inst uments ,

1 4 RICHARD STRAUSS

Strauss had not yet appeared in his music ,

s n n the tyle of the you g man of twe ty , as

n in n in n n show the Sympho y F mi or , the Pia o

and Wandr er s Stur mlied Quartet , the , had changed considerably from that of the com

of In poser the still earlier works . these three

Wandr er s works , and more especially in the

Stur mlied n n , most people see the i flue ce of

in B iilow Brahms , whom had probably inter

n n es ted him . A still stro ger influe ce was n now to come i to his life . According to Strauss hims elf the t ur mng-point of his career was his friendship with Alexander Ritter

1 8 n — n s ( 33 a man of ma y parts violi i t ,

o litté r ateur and s - One c mposer , , mu ic seller .

’ Str aus s s G Dr E of erman biographers , . rich

n - t Urba , thinks that the par played by Ritter in the development of the composer has been

e exaggerated ; at most , he thinks , Ritt r could only have given the final impulse to tendencies that had long been slumbering in

ein ver wor Strauss . Ritter , he says , was D n rener enker , ein u klarer Kopf a con

n ah n n n fused thi ker , u clear i tellige ce He holds that it was more probably Biilow who

’ applied the torch of modernity to St r aus s s LIFE 1 5 smouldering faculties ; and he quotes a r e mark oi the composer to the effect that in

1 88 October , 5, he attended daily the rehearsals M n of the eini gen Orchestra , at which he was initiated by B iilow into the art ofo conducting

’ in his [Biilow s] sense and in that of Wag n ner . We may take it for gra ted that Biilow brought the young composer into closer touch with many of the main currents of modern music . At the same time we are

’ bound to accept St r aus s s own declaration H of . e w as how much he owed to Ritter , - according to Strauss , a well read man , par

He ticular ly in philosophy . had married a

n an niece of Wag er , and was ardent apostle of the ideas of Wagner and Liszt and the s o G t called New erman school , wi h its ideal

His M . of usik als Ausdruck influence , says Strauss , was in the nature of the storm

He wind . urged me on to the development of the poetic , the expressive in music , as exemplified in the works of Liszt , Wagner, M . Aus and Berlioz y symphonic fantasia ,

Italien, is the connecting link between the E old and the new methods . rich Urban ,

o an ih h wever, doggedly declines to see y 1 6 RICHARD STRAUSS

fl uence Aus Itatieh B ur leske of Ritter in , the ,

' V n o the iolin So ata ( p . or the six songs

1 . that form op . 9

Biilow M n When left eini gen , in November ,

1 88 en 5, Strauss became his successor . He oc

i n 1 1 886 pied th s post u til April , . The April and May of that year he spent mostly in Rome and Naples it was from this Italian j ourney

Am Italieu 1 6 that (op . ) spr ang . The work M n was first performed at u ich , in the spring

1 88 1 of 7 , under Strauss himself . On August ,

1 886 n ll t , he was appoi ted third m O Kape eis er M n at the unich Opera , u der Levi and Fischer,

s t 1 1 88 a po i ion he gave up on 3 July , 9 . On

1 1 88 October , 9 , he became assistant Kapell W meister at eimar , under Lassen . By this

i m a t me he had found hi self as composer, as the bare enumeration of the works written

n nd 1 88 Aus betwee 1 885 a 9 will Show . I talien was followed in 1 886 by the s ix songs

s 1 publi hed as op . 7 , the first of which

’ ” Seitdem dein Aug in meines schaute , with it s more refined pass ion and it s greater free — dom of handling has . only to be compared with one of the earlier songs , such as the

Z . 1 0 popular ueignung of op , for the

LIFE 1 7 difference between the Strauss of eighteen ' — and the St raus s of twenty-two the pre — Ritter and the pos t-Ritter Strauss to be at

n In 1 88 once appare t . 7 came the vigorous

n . Violin So ata (op which , youthful as it

’ s St r aus s s still is in compari on with later work , inhabits a different world from the Violin 88 — n Concerto of 1 2 3 (op . Passi g over the

n s 1 . 2 1 . so g of op . 9 op and op 22 (1 886 it need only be mentioned that

20 - Don uan 1 888 op . was the tone poem j ( ,

in B iilow first performance Berlin under ) , ! cb th Tod und e 2 M a e . 2 V r op . 3 , , and op 4 ,

‘ klar un 1 88 E g ( 9 , first performance isenach , for it to be quite evident that in the two or three years immediately succeeding 1 885 Strauss had left far behind him the sober

s s and cla ical ideals of his boyhood , was well on the way to becoming the audacious revo lutionar y who s o startled the mus ical world — between 1 895 the year of Till E ulensybiegel

1 8 8— Ein Heldenleben and 9 the year of .

M acbeth t ou it ear s a at er us nu er t an , h gh b l Op mb h ’ - D on uan is in r ea t St r aus s s r s t t one oe . I t w as J , li y fi p m r t t en in t h e s u er of 1 88 and ven un er B iilow w i mm 7 , gi d in er n t en r ev s e a nd u s e a t er D on uan I t B li , h i d , p bli h d f J . was r s t er or e in e ar in 1 8 0 in it s r ev s e or fi p f m d W im 9 i d f m . C 1 8 RICHARD STRAUSS

M in 1 88 On leaving unich , October , 9 , as

s we have seen , Strau s went to Weimar, where he remained as conductor until the beginning 8 1 . of June , 94 Among the operas he pro duced there were two short works of his

A Der mentor , lexander Ritter faule Hans — and Wem die Krone while as conductor of the Liszt Society at Leipzig he did a good M deal for modern music . eanwhile he had

ln made his first experiment in opera . An fl ammation of the lungs and a general break down through overwork had sent him , in the

’ 1 8 2 G spring of 9 , on a year s tour to reece , E l gypt , and Sici y in search of health . At

2 D 1 8 2 Cairo , on 9 ecember , 9 , he began the

Guntr am n first act of , finishi g it at Luxor on

27 February of the following year . The

V l Blandini second act was completed at i la ,

n 1 8 Ramacca , Sicily , on 4 Ju e , 93 ; and the M third at arquartstein , Upper Bavaria , on

1 8 5 September, 93 . Strauss himself conducted

1 2 Ma the first performance at Weimar, on y ,

8 l i i h Z 1 . He nr c G 94 eller was the untram , and Pauline de Ahna—the daughter of the Bavarian — general Adolf de Ahna , who later on became .

Fr i il e h d . the wife of the composer , was the The

2 0 RICHARD STRAUSS

is satis factory t o note that he can conduct a trifle like the Fledermaus of the younger Johann Straus s with the s ame gus to as Tris

! t an or Die Meistersinger or The Barber B ” t i of aghdad . The ca holicity of h s tas te is further shown by the fact that he w as one of

’ the first to see the beauty of Hump er dinck s

Han G and s sel und retel , the fir t to give that

r the D 1 8 delightful wo k to world , in ecember , 93 ,

n is a ll i t er s i t A duri g h K p e me s h p a Weimar . s he w as at that time thinking out his Als o spr ach

Zar athus tr a t n s ns , which , all hi g co idered , is

s t t n n n the mo revolu io ary work of our ge eratio , it is evident that the mos t intense abs orption in his ow n int ellectual world is not incompatible with the warmes t s ympathy with mus icians f t of radically di ferent ou looks . I n the mids t of all the heavy work entailed by this conduct ing and t ravelling he found time to writ e that s eries of orches t ral works which defined once for all his pos ition in the

f n n t nt n his tory of the music o the i e ee h ce tury .

i l E ul ns ie el 2 8 l s n T l e p g (op . ) followed c o e upo

the s Guntr am it w as t n in 1 8 heel of wri te 94 ,

and r it s t n n eceived firs performa ce at Colog e ,

i 1 8 Wiillner n . under , 95 From there it LIFE 2 1 quickly made its way to almos t every musical t G n — Mun ci y in erma y except his birthplace ,

On t wo s n Till E ulen ich . ly o gs separate spiegel from Als o s pr ach Zar athus tr a (Op . which was first performed under Straus s him

at a on 2 1 8 . self Fr nkfort , 7 November , 95

D in 1 8 and on uixote . Q (op 35) followed 97 ,

in 8 8 and Ein H eldenleben (op . 40) 1 9 at the — age of thirty four St rauss was the most talked of s n in t e H e mu icia h world . had already

t n - carried the ypical moder art form , the

n n n n sympho ic poem , as far beyo d a ythi g of

t s the kind hat his predece sors had written , as Wagner in Tr is tan had swung hims elf beyond the ken of all earlier or contemporar y

s His n O composer of opera . nine followi g pus numbers comprise nothing but songs and a

- s s His n few male voice choru e . ext large work

F euer s not O was the opera h ( p . produced

D n 2 1 1 01 at resde on November , 9 . This was

Das n succeeded by Tal (op . a so g for

and bass voice and orchestra , a choral work ,

Taille e r . 2 1 0 f (op 5 ) then , in 9 4 , came the

— s S m honi Do s a me tica . much discus ed y p (op 53 ,

in 2 1 first performance New York , March , ' 1 0 One 9 4 , under Strauss) . would have thought 2 2 RICHARD STRAUSS that the climax of excitement about him had n Of been reached lo g ago , but the production his i D S alome . n third opera , (op resden ,

D 1 0 fier cer on 9 ecember , 9 5, roused a storm of controversy than ever . Since S alome he n s has produced nothi g on a large scale . Opu 55 is a B ar dengesang (1 906) for male-voice chorus

6 ix n and orchestra ; op . 5 a set of S so gs ; and op . 57 two marches . A fourth opera ,

Elect a r . , has not yet seen the light

’ Str aus s s personal acqualnt ance with Eng M land dates from 1 897 . August anns had already given his Till E ulensgbiegel at the

on 2 1 M 1 8 6 Als o Crystal Palace arch , 9 , and 6 M 8 s r ach Zar athustr a 1 . p on arch , 97 On

D 1 8 a n e 7 ecember , 97 , at Wag er concert giv n

’ Mr - the H by . Schulz Curtius in Queen s all , n n Till Lo do , Strauss conducted his own

' Eulens ie el Tod und Ver klarun p g and g, this being the first English performance of the

His latter work . music , however , spread

1 02 slowly here ; even in November , 9 , the wi Musical Times could say , th unconscious n is iro y , that the name of Richard Strauss n En gradually becomi g known in gland . On

1 F 1 02 - F euer s ebruary , 9 , the love scene from LIFE 23

’ noth Mr was given by . Wood at Queen s

Hall .

Some months later , at the Lower Rhenish

F Diiss eld or f in Ma estival , held at y , Strauss had made a remark that had unexpectedly

’ - c es El ar s Ger ontius wide reaching ons eqw c . g had j ust received , under the baton of Julius

B uths , a performance that made amends for the inadequate rendering it had had at the Bir min 0 gham Festival of 1 90 . After the official toasts had all been proposed Strauss surprised every one by spontaneously proposing another ; ” I raise my glass , he said , to the welfare

‘ success of E and the first nglish Progressivist , M is E E e ter dward lgar , and of the young E ” progressive school of nglish composers . The remark gave great offence in some quarters E in ngland , where several estimable composers , who were , however, neither progressive nor M n t oE eisters , felt that the complime t lgar was

’ St r auss s a backhander to themselves . But generous words undoubtedly had much to

’ do with the revival of Elgar s great work in

t e this country . At the end of h same month and the beginning of June , Strauss gave some concerts in London in conj unction with Herr 2 4 RICHARD STRAUSS

’ ' von Pos s ar t c t nn s n E n c , who re i ed Te y o s o h

A n s at the i n accom rde , the compo er p a o

n n t n pa yi g wi h his ow mus ic (op . Per for mances s v n n t s were al o gi e , u der S rau s , of

Tod und Ver kla r un D on uan Till E ulen g, j , s ie el and n n t On 1 D c V . 2 p g , the ioli So a a e em

1 0 W the r s E n s 2 . ber , 9 , Mr ood gave fi t gli h

E H eldenleben t cs n in . performa ce of The cri i , where they wer e n ot dubious as to the value

the n ew r s t t s t l of wo k , were mo ly ra her ho i e

t o it and W d but the public took , Mr . oo

e on 1 n and 2 8 rep ated it Ja uary March ,

1 0 9 3 .

‘ I n 1 02 Tod und Ver klar n September , 9 , u g

n at the W s t s s was give orce er Fe tival , thi being the firs t performance of any work of

an En s s t a Stur mlied w as his at gli h fe iv l . The given at the Sheffield Fes tival in Oct ober of the same year .

I n n 1 0 an t t s s s Ju e , 9 3 , elabora e S rau fe tival ,

s t n s in n n la i g three day , was held Lo do . The fine A mst erdam Orchestra had been engaged ;

’ it had the reputation of playing St r aus s s

t r n and Ein H elden works wi h especial b illia cy , leben n t it s n had bee dedica ed to co ductor , n Wilhelm Me gelberg . Two performances were

2 6 RICHARD STRAUSS

ably , we Shall never hear on the stage in

‘ England ; but the dance from it was played by the New Symphony Orchestra , under

’ Mr . F 2 2 ritz Cassirer , at Queen s Hall on

1 0 November , 9 7 . At a concert to be given at

’ Queen s Hall on 1 9 March of the present year it was intended that Strauss Should conduct the dance and two long vocal excerpts from

S alome — n , the great scene betwee Salome and

ochanaan J , and the final scene of the opera ; but the concert fell through owing to a dis

’ agreement between the Queen s Hall author i ties and the German Genossenschaft that manages the financial affairs of the composers

belonging to it .

’ Str aus s s It will be seen that life , so far as

external events are concerned , has been comparatively uneventful ; it is mainly a record of strenuous labour as composer and

conductor . When we survey the already enormous mass of his music we feel that this alone is enough work for one man to have

, done ; and when we think of the further great strain upon his time and his strength involved in his constant conducting and his travelling—for he has toured the world from LIFE 27 — New York to Moscow we wonder that he F has not broken down long ago . ortunately for him he keeps clear , for the most part , of the literary side of music H e has edited a German edition of Berlioz ’ s Treatise on ” Instrumentation , has written a magazine article or two , and is the editor of a little series of books Die Musik is the general title of the series— most of which would be highly interesting if only the atrocious German typography of them permitted any one who

s re pects his eyesight to read them . The

’ latest volume of the series is upon St r aus s s old friend , Alexander Ritter ; the author is

H aus e er Siegmund von gg . Of Strauss as a conductor only those who n have heard him freque tly , and in all kinds of music , have a right to speak . The readings he has given of his own works in England have been highly personal ; in Also s pr ach

Zar athustr a Ein Heldenleben and , for example , he stresses the occasional freakishnes ses of the music more than the maj ority of other con duct or s do . In his operatic conducting , how

a ever, he is said to pay less attention to det il and more to breadth of general effect and it 2 8 RICHARD STRAUSS

is claimed for him that he is both broad in his s ympathies and conscientious in

his s n the of dutie , givi g same for ex a an Lor tzin mple , to opera g as does W one by agner . CHAPTE R II

EARLY INSTRUMENTAL WORKS

IT is generally agreed that the Strauss we

- A s Italien 1 6 know to day dates from u (op . ) and though all divisions of this kind are

s necessarily omewhat arbitrary , it will be found convenient for purposes of criticism to

draw a line of demarcation there . The year

n F estmar s ch of compositio of his first opus , the ,

n not n n n is appare tly defi itely k ow , but assum

1 880 con ing it to be about , the works to be s id er ed in this chapter cover a period of about

1 880 1 88 in five years , from to 5, which latter - year Strauss would still be only twenty one . — They include thirteen songs the considera tion of which we may reserve for the chapter — on his songs as a whole two Quartets , ten l n sma l pieces for pianoforte , a Pia oforte

S V a onata , a Sonata for ioloncello and Pi no , V a Concerto for iolin and Orchestra , a Concerto 29 30 RICHARD STRAUSS

F or for the rench Horn , a large choral and

al a ius tru chestr work , Serenade for wind M ments , a arch for Orchestra , and a Symphony . The general impression one gets from all these works is that of a head full to overflowing with

c music , a temperament that is energeti and —nu forthright rather than warm , a faculty — usual in so young a composer of keeping the

’ hearer s attention almost always engaged , and a general lack not only of young-mannish sentimentality , but of sentiment . There is n often a good deal of ardour in the writi g , ’ but it is the ardour of the intellect r ather than of the emotions . Though he is sometimes ll dry , he is scarcely ever du ; the dryness is a personal tang ; it suggests a Sinewy young athlete ’ s j oy in his own energizing and in his n n freedom from anythi g like excess of feeli g . The work is the outcome of a definite person

- man ality , not the mere music making of a who own has nothing of his to say . It is this youth ful strength that makes the best of the earlier E works still interesting and enj oyable . ven

F 1 in the boyish estmarsch (op . ) there is a quite amazing vigour of the bantam kind ; and even in the Trio , with its amusingly self EARLY INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 31

confident little melody , that reminds one of the cheekiness of some healthy and irre

pressible urchin , there is unexpected energy .

The first , second , and fourth movements of

2 the String Quartet (op . ) have the same breezy ,

. s ee . 2 healthy quality We it again in Nos ,

' F n Klaviers t cke u u . 4 , and 5 of the f (op and in all the fast movements of the Piano Quartet

V o . (op . the iolin Concert (op the

Violoncello Sonata (op . the Piano Sonata

the O . (op . and Symphony ( p The

music here is generally , in spite of its untiring

energy of movement , a little hard and metallic

it reminds us of arabesques traced on steel .

t he On other hand , wherever the youthful

has Strauss to Sing rather than declaim , when he has to be emotional rather than intellectual ! as in his slow movements , he almost invariably

NOS it . . 1 F n fails At best , as in and 3 of the f

' Klavier s tuche he , manages to echo the senti ment of some previous composer— Schumann in the first case , Beethoven in the second . Schumann ’ s romanticism is written all over 1 No . , and the middle section in particular has come straight from the G minor section of the

is Humoreske while in No . 3 there a 32 RICHARD STRAUSS rather conscious imitation of the B eethoven

n nn nn fu eral march ma er . There is Schuma again in the andantino Tr aumer ei of the

Stimmun s bilder n as n g for pia oforte , , i deed ,

is t s there almost hroughout the serie , though it mus t be said that the mus ic is not weakly

t It s n imi ative . till has the peculiar firm ess and confidence of s tyle that w as s o character is tic of Straus s from the outset he was never in the least danger of becoming one of the

n n n Schumannikins I n ordi ary se time tal . the

n the t n slow moveme ts of S ri g Quartet , the

n n the V n Pia o So ata , ioloncello So ata , the

V n n and the n ioli Co certo , Sympho y he is

H e s obvious ly ill at ease . feel it hard to s n n queeze a tear out of his u clouded you g eyes ,

s - n n to make tho e taut , whip cord you g erves i t t n of h s quiver wi h emo io . Sometimes he

s the n is come near commo place , which a rare thing for him ; for however one may dislike this or that phras e of Straus s one can rarely

s s In the V n n de pi e it . ioli Co certo and the Violoncello Sonata he wisely cut s the slow

n as and on moveme t as Short possible , gets to his finale or his rondo with an evident Sigh of relief ; in the Piano Sonata he dovetails

34 RICHARD STRAUSS

n n me t of the Piano Sonata , written whe he n n n t was o ly sixtee or seve teen , here Is , In Spite of an obvious discontinuity of idea now and then , at times a quite surprising strength ! and consistency of tissue . Perhaps the ex

’ t r aor dinary nervous force of Strauss s later compositions and the audacity of their form make us t oo prone to underestimate the value

o of his earliest w rks . When we try to look h impartially at t ings like the Symphony , the

B urles ke Piano Quartet , and the , we recognize in them the possibility of a firs t-rate sym

ni ca e pho s t . Nothing n b further from the truth than the idea of Strauss—current in — — some quarters as a harum scar um young man whose fancy runs away with him for want of sufficient education in the principles of form to hold it in check . AS a matter of

as fact , probably no young musician h ever had a more solid grounding in the accepted musical forms , or has practised them more W M G easily . hen he left the unich ymnasium

Th e little hamm er ing figur e of four not es t hat r uns t hr ough t h e gr eat er par t of t he movem ent is obviously ! ” ’ an echo of the Fat e t heme in B eet hoven s fift h s ym ' n The v t a t and r n pho y. i li y f esh es s of Str auss s tr eat ment t e r ea a n n of i ar lly st o ishi g . EARLY INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 35

1 882 in , at the age of eighteen , according to Professor Giehr l every mus ician who knew him was staggered es sei fiir alle Musiker etwas geradezu Verbliiffend es at the ease ! and completeness of his mastery of all the forms . It is not lack of command of the classical manner that has kept Strauss from working contentedly , like Brahms , within

m o the frame of the Beethoven sy ph ny , but the recognition that for ideas like his the classical manner is inappropriate . And in m the works of his early anhood , written about 1 88 1 88 4 and 5, we can plainly see a contest going on within him between the dutiful youth who believes what his masters had told him , and the adventurous young man who is beginning to think for himself . The B urles ke is an interesting example of this struggle . A good deal of it is undeniably

Brahmsian in spirit , the beginning of the first theme for the piano being a reminis cence

’ a D indeed , of the theme of Br hms s minor B allade ; and the frequent cross-rhythms in the work have been openly bought at the

ah Br ms counter . And yet the face of the Strauss we all know keeps peeping out of the 36 RICHARD STRAUSS heavy Brahmsian hood like the face of Till E ulenspiegel from under the hood of the

n A s ee as t e n mo k . lready we he h h otion which later on he will often carr y to an extreme — that music can be made almost as definite

s as words or pictures . He tells the piani t , for example , to play a certain phrase in the

B urles ke con umore , without at the same n time telli g him how to do it . The humour obviously exists only in the mind of the com

in n s poser , and that of the pia i t if he can persuade himself that he sees it . The phrase in s s itself is j u t mildly graceful , and it is afe to s ay that not a Single person who has heard the B urles ke has ever dreamt that it was meant to be humorous . It is evident that if Strauss was bent on trying to suggest things in of this kind instrumental music , the classical and abstract forms were not the place for him the sooner he j umped the wall and got int o the field of programme music the better

n s n for him a d for u . There were other sig s that he was beginning t o strain at the class ical n leash . Perhaps , i deed , Some of the earliest works are not so innocently abstract as we

V n 1 88 — imagine . E ven in the iolin Co certo ( 2 3)

EARLY INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 37 he interpolates the second subj ect of the first in fi movement the nale , thirty bars or so before the end , and marks it molto con

n Si nifi espressio e , as if it had some poetic g

n o 1 88 — cance in his mi d . In the Symph ny ( 3 4) both the third and fourth movements contain frequent reminiscences of the first , and one cannot doubt that the reappearances of the earlier themes are in obedience to some poetic scheme . It is thus probable that even the good boy whom Meyer and Giehrl were patting on the back for his touching filial devotion to the classical form was already hatching Sinister n n plans for tur i g the old lady out of doors . Perhaps all that was needed to divert Strauss into the new path at this time was some over mastering emotion which he would feel to be inexpressible in the older manner and of the coming of this there are signs in the works of the end of his first period . In the first and third movements of the Piano Quartet , in particular , there is a quite new note . There is all the old energy , but it is now touched and quickened by an unaccustomed emotion . The andante is the first Slow movement of Strauss of which the fount and origin is pure spon 38 RICHARD STRAUSS — t aneous feeling not the mask of feeling put on n n at the bidding of the i tellect . Not o ly does the mood of this Piano Quartet often

t Aus I talien forecast tha of , but the thematic phrases begin t o Show one marked character — is tic of the style of the later Strauss a super abimd ant energy that sends the melodies n a sweepi g far up and down the sc le , and a length of breath that enables them to run an exceptionally long course . Everything is ready

r - s for the e birth of the real Strau s . He is an

o as acc mplished technician , he h complete

of s mastery his idea , he is acquiring fresh emotional energy without losing any of his old intellectual energy ; all that is needed now is to find some form that will give the in h freest play to the best that is him . T is form he ultimately found in programme music .

40 RICHARD STRAUSS

that brought with it a more nervous s us cepti bilit n t e y to feeli g . The j ourney to Italy in h spring of 1 886 no doubt accelerated this pro

xCeSS n the n , Italy disturbed and I spired you g man s imagination as it has always done that

s n — G Tchaikovski of ensitive Norther ers oethe , ,

and H — ugo Wolf, for example when they have

Aus Italien visited it for the first time . In , which was written immediately after his return

’ St r auSs S from the south , the pulse of music is perceptibly quickened and the temperature of it heightened by the physical and mental sensa tions he had experienced in Italy -m0re potent n i fluences in his development , we may be sure ,

than all the arguments of Ritter . The emo tional glow in the first and third ' movements is as far above anything we meet with even in the andante of the Piano Quartet as the warmth of that is above the average tempera

ture of the preceding works . A casual survey of the first movement alone will Show that here everything is generated and controlled by - n m emotion . There is no music maki g for usic

nl t St r aus s is st ill peculiar ly s us cept ible t o s u igh . H e has t old mor e t han one fr iend t hat h e cannot compos e in t he wint er ; light and war mt h ar e neces s ar y befor e his eas e n t o fl ow id will b gi .

LATE R INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 41

’ making s sake , no mere strenuous turning of the wheel regardless of whether there is any corn n bei g ground or not , as there was in much of the earlier vigorous but steely work here the whole movement has its genesis in a per sonal emotion that has been sincerely felt and lived through . The music , too , has the broad deliberate onward sweep from its beginning to its end that is characteristic of so many of the later symphonic poems of Strauss ; and although the composer here has wisely let the ideas determine the form , instead of attempt in n g to fit them i to a preconceived frame , the development is perfectly logical and the move t men as a whole finely balanced and organic .

c n In the third movement , again , depi ti g the

’ feelings of the composer By Sorr ent o s n Stra d , there is a sensitiveness to pure — beauty to the quality in music that gives the ear the same deep contented j oy that the form and colour of beautiful flowers give to the eye that marks a great advance upon anything of the kind that Strauss had attempted previously .

Both this and the first movement , indeed , re main to this day among his most truly felt and exquisitely expressed works . We notice , 42 RICHARD STRAUSS

o again , in this third m vement , the beginning ’ of Str auss s many efforts at literary and pic — t or ial characterization in music though as yet the tendency is kept within legitimate bounds . The second movement is both the matically and emotionally interesting and is

well worked out . The finale , a representation

! is of Neapolitan popular life , the least satis f factory movement o the work . There is a

breezy vitality in a good deal of it , but as a w s hole it does not hang together , the mu ic Often bustling along in a way that is meant to

be vivacious but is merely fussy . How much of the new warmth of feeling and the more vitalized workmanship that marked Aus Italien out from the earlier music of Strauss was the outcome of his having a poetic scheme to follow may be guessed from the Violin Sonata composed in the following

year . Here , although at times the greater depth of emotion and the superior technique that Strauss had now acquired ar e clearly

evident , he is obviously not completely at his

The fir st s ubj ect o f t he finale is t he melody of ’ ” D enza s s on Funiculi funicula ic St r aus s had g , , wh h ear in a es H e t ou t it w as a N ea o t an o h d N pl . h gh p li f lk s on and has s o es nat e it in his s cor e g , d ig d LATER INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 43

eas e in the more abstract sonata form . The

first movement is indeed remarkably rich , strong , and well constructed the themes are both striking in themselves and are treated with much fertility of device , and the music flows on in an almost unbroken current from

‘ a the first bar to the last . But the ndante , though there is a certain artificial charm in

” of some the writing , notably in the arabesques of the latter portion , has nothing like the depth of meaning of either of the slow sections of

Aus It e a i n. l To use a Coleridgian distinction , it comes from the fancy rather than from the imagination it is graceful and pleasant , but the feeling is slightly self-conscious and rises n from o great depth . The finale is almost

’ Str aus s s — wholly in earlier manner is , indeed , rather more scrambling and inorganic than

final most of his youthful es . The Sonata

’ marks St r aus s s final breach with the abstract classical form he now recognized that what

-fitt ed he had to say was ill for this form , and that it could only come t o full expression in the freer forms of poetic music . This is not the place to attempt either a summary of the history of programme music 44 RICHARD STRAUSS or a detailed analysis of the aesthetic problems ! n the it i volves . A brief survey of question

n s is , however , ecessary if we de ire to apply a critical criterion to the later works of Strauss or to unders tand their Significance in the

s n hi tory of moder music .

n Roughly speaki g , there are two kinds of musical idea the one is self-existent and self

' f n n n it suf icie t , referri g to nothi g external to

and n n n self, requiri g no k owledge of anythi g but itself for the full understanding of it the other is prompted by some previous literary or pictorial concept and can only be fully under in n n stood conj u ctio with this . At the one extreme stand mus ical ideas like those of the M average fugue , or the subj ects of a ozart symphony at the other extreme stand ideas M like those of a song or an opera . idway between these two ther ellies a peculiar kind of musical idea that is not actually associated — — with words as in the Opera or the song but

The st udent w ho is int er es t ed in t he s ubj ect will ’ find a mas s of hist or1cali nfor mat ion in Pr ofes s or Niecks s ” r ecent ar e oo Pr o r a e Mus c . For an at t e t l g b k , g mm i mp t o s olve th e gener al aest het ic ques t ion p er haps I may b e allowed t o r efer t o a lengt hy es s ay of my own in my Musical St udies

46 RICHARD STRAUSS man in the rhythms that suggest the gallop

’ ing horse in Lis zt s Mazeppa in the s oftly swaying harmonies that depict the rus tling leaves in the Waldweb en in Siegfried in the undulating melodies in which Bach

O n fte tries to suggest a river , or the broken phrases in which he tries to convey the idea

of a man stumbling . We may conveniently call the first kind of music abstract and the s econd poetic , though we must always remem ber that a great deal of music that is ostensibly abstract is really poetic in its origin . There are many apparently abstract compositions E which , like the Revolutionary tude of

Chopin , we know to have originated in a definite external stimulus ; and there must

m n s be a great a y other which , though the composer has left us wholly without clue to

ns their poetic intention , are certainly translatio into tone of the impress ions made by some book , or picture , or event , or aspect of nature . - Probably , if the truth were known , two thirds of the music of the p ast two hundred years belong rather to the category of poetic than t o that of abstract music .

o So far, h wever, we have been considering LATER INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 47 f only the basic ideas o a piece of music . These

in s n do not themselves , of cour e , co stitute a n musical composition , but o ly the material out of which it is to be made ; and it is in this process of building fragments of mus ical material into a large and organic whole that the great point of contention arises between the abstract and the poetic musicians . We

a are f ce to face , in fact , with the great and eternal problem of form—the problem of making each bar of a composition lead so naturally and logically into the next that the

t s whole issue seems like a living organi m , and

al one of so b ancing part with another , and making each detail a necessary factor in the f total e fect , that the composition as a whole satisfies our sense of design as a perfect piece

al of architecture does . Composers have ways instinctively striven after this architectural balance and proportion ; even the simplest

w al song or dance Sho s it in its modulation , h f way through , into the key of the dominant and its return to the key of the tonic . In the development of modern musical form it was inevitable that for some time the composers should concentrate most of their attention on 48 RICHARD STRAUSS what we may call the more external as pect — of des ign in music on securing an obvious and a o n and rather artificial bal nce , prop rtio ,

We f in orderliness . see the e fect of this the c onventional key-schemes and the Sharply separated subj ects ” of the average eigh t eent - Men h century symphony or sonata . were voyaging on new seas and felt it unsafe to venture out Of sight of land they invented subj ects so pointedly different in style that no one could help perceiving where one ended and the other began and their simple schemes of key-contrast and key-sequence threw no strain on a sense of tonality that was as yet n n almost in its i fa cy . The obvious lacuna in the symphonic strue ture of Mozart and Haydn were filled up by B v eetho en . He made each part of the music grow organically out of and into the parts that followed and preceded it ; he introduced a

alt — o a we h of new detail mel dic , h rmonic ,

h a — u rhyt mic , and modul tory yet b ilt it all so firmly and logically together that the total effect is as of some great building of the utmost in harmony of design , which practically every

' n s s t o e that is used play an indispensable part . LATER INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 49

In every sphere of music the same ideal of form — has t o be striven after logical continuity of tissue and perfect balance between the details

and the mass . But it is evident that abstract music can as a rule attain this ideal much more easily M than poetic music . usic that is concerned with nothing but self-existent themes and their poss ibilities of metamorphosis has neces s arily fewer difficulties in its way than poetic

music , which has to pursue simultaneously two lines of development for it has to weave a connected musical tissue by the same process of evolution of new matter from old that goes

on in abstract music , and at the same time it has to follow the lines laid down for it by its

t o poetic basis . It is in the attempt serve thes e two masters at once that so much poetic music comes ‘ to grief ; if t he music pursues merely its own line of development it is apt to obscure or misinterpret the programme

! I her e u s e t he t er m pr ogr amme t o cover ever y kind and ever y for m of s ubj ect t hat music may at t empt t e r es s In t s s ens e t he oe of a s on r an o xp . hi p m g o oper a ! ” is it s r o r a e ver s t u ent kno s t t p g mm . E y d w ha t her e can be the s ame clashing b et we en the wor ds and t he us c of a s on for e a e a s et een th e r o r a m i g , x mpl , b w p g mme and the us c f a s on c oe On the ne m i o ymph i p m . o hand 50 RICHARD STRAUSS

while if t he programme is followed with too canine a fidelity the total design of the work — is likely to be imperfect for literary form is

- r not musical form . The early nineteenth centu y experimenters in poetic music were soon made

‘ v uc to realize their dilemma . Berlioz ne er S ceed ed in discovering the new form that would n w n fit his e ideas . Liszt came earer to the

ideal in his symphonic poems , in which the poetic scheme was made to unfold within the n frame of a si gle movement , instead of the three or four or fiVe movements of the classical s ymphony and the programme s ymphony of

’ B ut s s Berlioz . Li zt powers of construction

n t al t o s n were o equ his power of inventio . He could illus trate the details of a poetic s ub ject expres s ively enough ; but almos t all his s ymphonic poems are weak in mus ical archi in n tecture . He never succeeded striki g the proper balance between the claims of the poetic scheme and the claims of the mus ical tissue to develop in its own way and in his

s t in his s on c oe s o t en ur sues t he t er ar Li z , ymph i p m , f p li y idea at the expens e of t h e pur ely mus ical d evelopment on t he ot her hand Schuber t Oft en wr it es pur e mus ic t hat does violent inj us tice t o the poem it is s uppos ed t o ustr a e ill t . LATER INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 51

anxiety that nothing of his programme shall remain unrevealed he often writes mus ic that is a mere disorganized drifting from one literary

He al point to another . is a music illustrator

rather than a musical builder .

w as in Poetic music , then , for a long time a

s dilemma . The method of Li zt and his more adventurous followers produced symphonic poems that were often admirably veracious - in detail , but ill knit and incoherent as a whole — the timid neo classicists , on the other hand , merely gave literary titles to pieces written in

the conventional symphonic form . Yet the f way out of the di ficulty was perfectly plain . Sincepoetic music has to tell a story and at the — same time to talk sound musical sense for n the ear will not tolerate , in the ame of litera

al ture , what it feels to be music nonsense obviously the proper course is to choose a programme the development of which will assist t he purely musical evolution instead of

n O placi g bstacles in the way of it . The musical tissue mus t always be the paramount considera

tion . The poetic scheme to be illustrated should therefore , in the first place , be as con cise and uncomplicated as possible , for, as 52 RICHARD STRAUSS

music requires a large s pace for its own peculiar n kind of developme t , no more than a hint from poetry is needed to s tart a lengthy

‘

musical discourse . Secondly , since much of what we call development in music con sists of the r e-presentation of the same thematic material in different forms— the ear finding one of its greatest pleasures in the recognition of variety in unity and unity in variety—it follows that the later episodes in the poetic scheme should bear such a relation to the earlier ones as can be logically expressed by

metamorphoses of the earlier musical themes . The prelude to Lohengrin is so perfect be — caus e its underlying poetic idea the angel

hosts emerging from the distance , bearing the Grail nearer and nearer the spectator until its

radiance blinds him , and then slowly receding — into the distance again is one that lends itself admirably to a typical musical device—that the S of starting a theme in implest terms , working up the pos sibilities latent in it to a

huge climax , and then refining it away again

to vanishing point . Here , of course , there is practically no incident ; and it is when the composer of poetic music comes to work upon

54 RICHARD STRAUSS

’ of man s heart and as the thing to be uttered

n . varies , the way of utteri g it must vary also There is only one rational definition of good form in music— that which expresses most succinctly and most perfectly the s tate of soul in which the idea originated ; and as moods and n SO s ideas Cha ge , mu t forms . The form n t t n of the fi ale of the Pa he ic Sympho y ,

x in no for e ample , is perfect, because other w ay could that part icular sequence of emotions be s o poignantly and convincingly expres s ed . ! As Mr t nt . Bernard Shaw has recen ly poi ed out , nothing more perfect in the way of form could be imagined than the Preludes to Loh engr in and Tris tan their evolution from the first bar to the last is as inevitable in its elf and as beautifully rounded and com plet e as the slow passing of the hours In the n w B ut cycle from daw to da n . for some

ns n musicia , as has already been poi ted out ,

! form means sonata form and nothing more and they would crus h all musical ideas into this frame as Procrustes forced all his unhappy n captives to fit the same bed . Quite rece tly

I n The S anit y of A r t : an Expos ur e Of t he Cur r ent ” n e e r s e n D e ener e N o s ns about A ti t s b i g g at . LATER INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 55 a London newspaper solemnly censured a new work in these terms ' The whole work is n u n n si g larly lacki g in contrapu tal interest , and depends solely for such effect as it achieves upon certain emotional impres sions of harmony ” and colour . It matters little to these good souls that the particular thing the compos er wanted to say could only be s aid as he chos e

s a and s n to y it , that a di play of counterpoi t in the work might have been a s ludicrous ly ineffective as a suit of medieval armour on a

n n modern fencer . The o ly musical i terest , n n in for some worthy people , is co trapu tal t er es t ; and if a composer has ideas that do

; — s o not call for contrapuntal j ugglery well , t much the worse for him . If a Whis ler gets certain emotional impressions of harmony and colour from the play of a certain light on a fog-bank he mus t not try to convey his impress ions to others and to make them see the beauty he saw in this vague vibration of colour ; he must paint us something tangible ” — a D Da and substantial erby y , for example , or a provincial Mayor in an aggres sively

’ cu he uot t n r o Mr a a ace s I ll t q a io f m . Willi m W ll ” r ecen M t oo The r es o of us c . 8 . b k Th h ld i , p 9 56 R ICHARD STRAUSS

. new a red robe Any , treatment of new emotion must be s hunned like the plague ; the thing to be aimed at is contrapuntal ” n t i teres . l The wild charge of formlessness that is a so often flung at Strauss comes , in f ct , from a failure to distinguish between form and

' for malis AS n J m. the poi t is one of the utmost

importance to every s tudent of mod em music,

a little digress ion upon it will not be out of place . The school that looks askance at Strauss takes

for its idol Brahms , who is described by his more enthusiastic admirers as the last of the G C‘ great erman masters , and acclaimed as a

s ma ter of flawless form . Now any one who

’ looks at Brahms s symphonies , for example ,

with eyes unclouded by tradition , can see that his form is often far from flawless He is less a master of form than form is master of

He him . is like a man in whom etiquette predominates over manners his symphonies behave as they have been told rather than as

they feel . To say this is not to declare one

an - self anti Brahmsian . One can admire to

the the full all the profundity , the wisdom , m t hu anity , the poetry of tha great spirit, and

LATER INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 57 yet contest his claim to be regarded as one of n the kings of form . With Beethove the form seems the inevitable outcome of the idea, as

firs t- ul all rate , vitalized form sho d ; with Brahms the ideas are plainly manufactured to fit the form . The supposed necessity for pacifying this traditional monster is . visible on page after page . It cramps Brahms in the n maki g of his themes , which often Show the most evident signs of being s elected mainly

! because they were easily workable . This in itself is a mark of imperfect command of form ; we should never smell the lamp in a work of art . Or , to vary the analogy , though f a cathedral has to be begun with sca folding , he is a clumsy builder who leaves pieces of the s caf i folding still visible n the completed structure .

A picture , as Sir Joshua Reynolds said , should give us the impression of being not only done well but done easily . In Brahms the labour , the calculation are often too apparent We can overhear him muttering to himself, Now

now I must have my theme in augmentation , in diminution ; now I must fit A Into B with what other end in view, indeed , did I make them both variants of the arpeggio of 58 R ICHARD STRAUSS the same chord 9 now I have reached my n double bar , and I must flou der about , more

s n or less helples ly , for a mome t or two , till

can n n n ! n d s on I get i to my swi g agai a o .

e The whole movem nt , of course , is not made up of cold calculations of this kind but there are enough of them t o prove that B rahms was a s lave to his form ins tead of being mas ter of

and s s t o it , to make it impo ible place him in the s ame category with Beethoven . Such us eles s academic fumbling as that at the be ginning of the repeat in the firs t movement of

D n and the maj or sympho y , in a good deal of

s n E n the fir t moveme t of the mi or , quite destroys the vitality of the form for any one who can think for hims elf ins tead of believing n bli dly what the professors tell him . There are too many patches of lead vis ible here and there in the bronze statue for us to accept it as flawless .

s can f Strau s a ford to smile , then , at the cr itICISm that calls him formles s becaus e he chooses to make his own forms to s uIt his own

S ee for e a e t he r s t s u ect a nd it s s u e , x mpl , fi bj ppl ment ar y t heme in t he fir s t movement of the D maj or s on ymph y .

60 H D RIC AR STRAUSS,

on F book Sonata orm , its Cause and Cure , and present a copy to every student who is in t danger of catching he disease .

w as Sonata form , in fact , the special product — of a special order of musical ideas the best possible way of giving to those particular ideas t and n . he coherence , balance , u ity But ideas — — especially the musico-poetic ideas of this generation are not those of the eighteenth

nt or early nineteenth ce ury , and the old methods of building ideas up into large designs ‘ n are no longer wholly applicable ; cohere ce ,

n balance , and u ity must still be sought , but

’ f t St r auss s in di feren ways . It is great virtue n that he has shown how this can be do e . He is as solicitous about form ” as the most hide-bound pedant could be ; he himself has said , in reply to a question that was a little t indiscree , I always have form before my ” com s m s eyes in p o g . The defect in his later t orches ral works , and they are regrettably n ma y , are not at all of form but of conception they come from that lack of balance in his disposition that makes it impossible for him to keep the cruder and more freakis h side of his nature under but even when he is spoiling

62 RICHARD STRAUSS

A us Italien s hows him carefully feeling his way from the one to the other ; though he is working upon a programme he still adheres

t o n in the main , like Berlioz , the older sympho ic

is in form . The work four movements , each bearing a title I n the Campagna

andante 2 n ( ) ( ) Amo g the Ruins of Rome , with ‘ the sub-title Fantastic pictures of vanis hed splendour ; feelings of melancholy and sorrow in the midst of the sunny present

’ (allegr o molto con br io) (3) By Sor r ent o s Strand (andantino) (4) Scenes of Popular

Ther e is not s pace in t he pr es ent volume for a d is r r e cus sion of t he aes t het ic j u s t ificat ion of p og amm mus ic . I have a t t empt ed t his in t he ess a y in Musical St udies ve r ea r e er r e B ut co ar at ve t o which I ha al dy f d . mp i ly few people nowa days would hold t o t he old Opinion t hat r n The u est on pr ogr a mme mus ic is t he accu s ed t hi g . q i ’ u s ed t o b e r egar ded a s s et tled by Beet hoven s r emar k about his Pas t or al Symphony being mehr Aus dr uck als ” M er e n e ou now e ce t t o a . 0 o e t r ou s a t t at l i N bl b h , x p n e t e n e fl a t c nt r ct s he t eor ot t ha th s ympho y it s lf ly o adi t h y . I t is cur ous enou a ner w ho is now ut u as t he , i ly gh , W g p p r h e ns us nv er H is t eor t at bulwa k agains t t i idio i ad . h y h 0 r epr es ent at ive mus ic is only fully compr ehensible when t er e is a s t a e a ct on t o e uc at e it and t at it is im h g i l id , h pos s ible t o keep t h e progr amme of an or ches tr al wor k ’ in one s ea e o owin t he us c has r ece ve h d whil f ll g m i , i d r r ever en e t an i es er ves ave e s e er e s o n mo e c h t d . I h l wh h w ’ t hat Wa gner s t heor y w as s imply the expr es s ion of his own as t ar s st a e or h e cou not v s ua e for bi ow d g w k. If ld i liz LATE R INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 63

olto All Life in Naples (allegr o m ) . the while there can be seen the contest in the young composer between the traditions of his p ast

and the first stirrings of his future style . The Work is formal and free by turns it is neither pure poetic mood-painting nor pure abstract

be design , but a compromise or a fluctuation

tween the two . Strauss had not yet mastered the ‘art of framing his programme in such a way that n o clashing shall result between the

the poetic scheme and musical structure , the two evolving at the same rate along parallel

hims elf the pr ot agonis t s of a s ymphonic poem like E in H eldenleben t at is no r eas on ot er eo e who can , h why h p pl , ’ v sua e t e s ou ve u o n s o . And a ner s i liz h m , h ld gi p d i g W g own or is an e at cont r a ct on of his t eor w k mph ic di i h y . The Flying Dut chman and Tannhaus er over t ur es and the L o en r n r e u e r e u r e us w e ar e t o h g i p l d q i , if un er s t an t e u t o ee in our n s cer t a n d d h m f lly, k p mi d i s equences of ext er nal event s wit hout any help fr om t he ’ s t a e His or c estr a ct ur e of S e r e s Rhine- our ne g . h l pi i gf i d J y ” a a n in th e G ot t er a er un is r o r a e us c g i , d mm g , p g mm m i ur e and s e The n has t o a s s oc at e cer t a n p impl . mi d i i c ar act er s w t cer t a n t e es and a ne c er t a n h i h i h m , im gi i c an es of s cener and a ct on us t a s it has t o d o for h g y i , j , ’ ns T ik t ance in cha ovs ki s R o eo and u et over t ur e . i , m J li B ut the vast gener al question cannot b e dis cus s ed her e and in t he t ext of t he pr es ent chapt er it is a s s umed t hat t he r e ader accept s t he br oad pr inciple of pr ogr amme us c us t as he oes t he s on the o er a or th e m i j d ymph y, p , or at or o i . 64 RICHARD STRAUSS

M acbeth 1 886- ad lines . ( 7) shows a marked vance in this respect ; it is really a superior

r m Don wo k , from the point of view of for , to

uan 1 888 Don j , which was composed in . In juan Strauss meets for the first time with one of the main difficulties of the symphonic poem

— ' that of combining a mass of disparate a material , partly psychologic l and partly con t cerned with the narration of ex ernal events , in one satisfactory picture . The fines t pages of Don juan are those in which the nature of the programme allows the musician to give

d evelo l free play to his power of pure musical l p — ment as in the first portrait of Don Juan himself , in the duet between him and the

Countess , in the portrait of Anna , and in the tumultuous final section commencing with the theme in the four horns . The unsatisfactory — portions of the work are those such as the brief suggestion of the country maiden —that are dragged in willy-h illy for a moment with out forming any essential part of the tissue as a whole , and the carnival scene , where the

It is obviously impos sible t o find s pace in t his little ’ volume for an analys is of each of St r au s s s s ymphonic Man e c ent e e oe s . e t a e u es t o t p m y x ll d il d g id h m , o ever can be o t a ne h w , b i d .

66 RICHARD STRAUSS the picture—and absolutely nothing hap t h n n not n he t e . pe s , eve murder of ki g The whole drama is enacted in the s oul of Macbeth ; apart from the comparatively few bars that n n depict his wife , the score is e tirely co cerned with the internal conflict of the three mam — elements of his character his ambitious pride ,

M . his irresolution , and his love for Lady acbeth There is nothing here that is not pure stuff ” for . music, as Wagner would have said The musical texture of the work is extraordinarily strong and well-wrought ; already the young man of twenty-two makes Liszt seem like an

For amateur in comparison . the first time

s m homc in in the history of the y p poem , fact ,

al a music brain of the best kind , endlessly fertile in ideas and with a masterly technique , n is cultivati g the form . The score , youthful

al n as it is , ready shows the rich polypho ic nd structure that is characteristic of Strauss , a

beside which the homophonic , lyrical style of

Liszt seems decidedly thin .

Don uan the In j , while superb vitality of the work as a whole and the exquisit e beauty of episodes like the love-song of Anna and the duet with the Countess are what give it its LATE R INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 67

ai m n interest , there is some excellent work

ns W n ma hip . hen the ature of the poetic programme allows the mus ician t o take the

his and r un bit into own mouth , as it were , a n lo g course unchecked , we get some pages of the finest development that the history of the — symphonic poem can show the music um folding itself, bar by bar , with as perfect con tinuity and consistency as if it had nothing

s but itself to con ider, while at the same time it keeps adding fresh points to our knowledge of the psychology of the character it is por n trayi g . No other composer equals Strauss in this power of writing long stretches of music

and that interests us in for itself , at the same time that every line and colour in it seems to express some new trait of the individual who is being sketched perhaps the finest example of the kind is the long introductory section

’ Don u of Ein Heldenleben. In j an Str auss s purely musical powers touch a higher point than they had reached in any of the earlier

M acbeth work . is characteristic and veracious rather than beautiful , as indeed was inevitable from the nature of the subj ect in Don juan the flame of beauty burns brightly and pas 68 RICHARD STRAUSS s ionat el y almost throughout . But we notice

’ Str aus s s here , for the first time in work , the tendency to overburden mus ic with extraneous n and i assimilable literary concepts . Most

h own people will agree t at , besides its purely

n o i tensive w rld of expression , music has some j urisdiction over parts of ' territories that

belong to literature or to painting . No one but the most short-sighted of aestheticians will deny that besides expressing the inmost heart

man of , music can depict or suggest a vast

number of external things . It is useless to protes t that were it not for the programme we should never know that such and such a

sequence of notes was meant to represent , say ,

fl ow m E a sunrise or the g of water . very

a schoolboy knows th t all we contend for is ,

that given the clue , given the literary or pic

t orial n image , music can greatly deepe and heighten it and so add enormously to our

al pleasure . The fire music in The V kyrie would not of itself make a man who knew nothing of the story shout Fire the first time he heard it ; but when the stage Shows us fire and the characters are talking about

fire , the leaping and flickering and crackling

70 RICHARD STRAUSS tend the scope of mus ical speech in this legiti

and s mate way , quite another to make a bogu extens ion of it by merely tacking a literary label on t o a handful of notes that cannot poss ibly be made to mean what the label says they mean and Strauss is unfortunately rather n n give to deluding himself in this man er . The Rhine music really sugges ts flowing water the fire music really sugges ts flickering fire ; the sword motive really suggests something flashing and piercing and the swan ” in motive Lohengrin , though of course it — does not suggest a swan which it is not meant — to do really suggests the ethereal purity and

Monts alvat n calm of , of which the swan is o ly

s the visible ymbol . But when Strauss writes this sequence of notes

and tells us that it is meant to signify a feeling

’ t in Don n of satie y Juan s heart , we are bou d to tell him that it does nothing of the kind h n t t ere is no co grui y , as there is in the other cases , between the literary label and the

72 R ICHARD STRAUSS lat er s t age he brings in the theme in diminu tion

and as ks us to s ee in this the partly convales cent Zarathustra making sport of his previous ! depression of spirits , we can only say that

n con we are u able to oblige him . All we are scious of is that a sequence of notes that had very little meaning to begin with is now being

an made unnecessarily ugly d ridiculous .

Don uan In j , then , we can see Strauss setting his foot for the first time on the false path that has led him into so many marshes n l a d quicksands . Stil the mischief so far is not

es e t e es ar e not a e e of cour s e in t he s cor es Th h m l b ll d , , b ut ever y one knows t hat t he t it les given t o t hem r epr e ’ ent St r s s nt nt ns The nut e ana s es of his s au s i e io . mi ly s ymphonic po ems t hat ar e now is sue d in Ger many ar e v n a e Ob iously bas ed on i for m tion s uppli d by him . LATER I NSTRUMENTAL WORKS 73

as very great . Nor is there any error of t te or j udgment of this kind to distress us in his next

’ Tod und Ver klar un orchestral work , g As regards the union of pure form with un alloyed purity of material this is perhaps the

most perfect thing he has done . The archi t ectur al plan of Ein Heldenleben is vaster and grander ; but there are one or two crude deformities in the building that sadly mar the

‘ f od t total e fect . In T und Ver klctr ung S rauss has come nearer than anywhere else to that perfect fusion of matter and style that is the

al ide of all the arts . The poetic scheme is free from any matter that is not essentially i ! mus cal , and it develops in such a way as to afford the musician the amplest facilities for

development of his own special kind . The tissue of the work is woven with admirable

e clos ness and continuity , and at the same time

T e with great economy of means . h old material is constantly being presented in new forms ; even a merely rhythmic fragment

I t should be r emember ed t hat t he poem by Alexander R tt er t at is r e e t o t he s cor e w as r t t en a t er not i h p fix d w i f , e or e t he us c Str aus s or e u on a S e et on s c e e b f , m i w k d p k l h m ’ of his own So e er an cr t cs o R t er s oe . m G m i i h ld that it p m is not t r ue t o the s c at ever nt mu i y poi . 74 RICHARD STRAUSS like the death motive with which the n in symphonic poem ope s becomes charged ,

t n s i nificances the sequel , wi h all ki ds of g ,

’ and To l u poetic musical . In d und Ver k ar ng we have a quite Beethovenian unity ( and t one and breadth of concep ion . The work is indivisible it gives the first Sign of that breadth of span , that ability to hold all the detail of

’ ’ one s scheme in the hollow of one s hand and see the finished structure as it will ultimately n appear , that is the characteristic o ly of the greatest builders in art— what Pater has called that architectural conception of work which foresees the end in the beginning and never

s in is loses ight of it , and every part conscious

the n of all the rest , till last se tence does but , n with undimi ished vigour, unfold and j ustify the first . — In Till Eulenspiegel (1 894 5) the form is again de veloped with cons ummate cleverness the eloquent and witty transformations of the original themes interest na both by their purely musical quality and by the vividness with which they sugges t this or that aspect of the hero of the poem . It has been frequently

’ pointed out that St r auss s form always has

76 RICHARD STRAUSS

sounds some extraordinary depths , the general

Im lsh balance of his work is ups et . The p side of his temperament gets more and more out of his control , and he is increasingly inclined to overcrowd the programmes of his symphonic poems wit h literary or pictorial ideas that are generally beyond the power of music to express . This latter tendency is most evident in Als o spr ach Zar athustr a (1 894 in a sense

is the most thoughtful of h works , but never theless the one which will perhaps fade the soonest The conception as a whole is a monumental one , and the work contains some of the noblest music that Strauss has written . But music cannot properly cover some of the ground laid out in the programme

s and there are one or two section where , in Spite of the titanic power with which Strauss tries to overcome his difficulties , the musical tissue of the work wears very thin . At times we miss altogether the Splendid continuity of weaving of the earlier s ymphonic poems ; there are places where the composer checks the stream of his musical development alto gether in order to play off one thematic LATER INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 77 fragment against another in a way that may enforce the literary or philos ophical point he is

n n drivi g at , but which certai ly does not make organic music . The work is an illustration of one of the dangers to which , as we have already m l seen , the odern symphonic poem is pecu iarly exposed—that of working upon a literary plan too full of episodes for the music to get a fair

field for continuous development of its own . These defects will probably be enough t o make Als o spr ach Zar athus tr a age more rapidly

a th n any other orchestral work of Strauss . Just as a chain is no stronger than its weakest

ar t link , so a work of is no stronger than the weakest page in it ; and the pages in Zar a thustr a that are musically weak are numerous enough to interfere seriously with our appr ecra of tion the rest . In the great bulk of the score the workmanship is fully as strong as that of . any other of his works up to this time ; there is the usual breadth of view in the total design and the usual fertility of device in the use of the details of the material . It is

astonishing , indeed , how near he comes ,

the difliculties time after time , to overcoming inherent in the nature of what is perhaps 78 RICHARD STRAUSS the most difficult s ubj ect ever set by a musician;

is t n in ns s t n he a Ti a chai , but ill a Tita . Here and there in Zar athus tr a we can detect traces of the freakish element that is so strong

’ in St r aus s s and c character , that has ome more and the S n Till Eulens ie el more to front i ce p g .

The serious nature of the subj ect , however , and the elevated mood in which the composer n n u doubtedly approached it , allow this eleme t to give no more than an occas ional hint of its

n n s existe ce . In his two ext big work , how

‘ Don uixote 1 8 and Ein Heldenleben ever , Q ( 97) it breaks bounds and goes a long way ' towards s poiling t w o of the fines t scores of the

’ r B St r aus s s nineteenth centu y . y this time technical facility and his command over his own ideas had become quite remarkable there w as nothing he could not do -with his l . On materia the purely formal side , both Don Quixote and Ein H eldenleben are perfectly mas terly ; there seems to be no limit to his inventivenesss or to his power of pres enting his themes in always new and always thoroughly int eres ting forms and he writes the most

‘ s complicated polyphony with astounding ea e . We need not lay too much stress on the famous

80 RICHARD STRAUSS inexhaustible variety of invention in the

thematic development of the two works . In Don Quixote the modern variat ion form may

s r eefeived be aid to have its apotheosis . The method inaugurated by Wagner of denoting a

character by a theme , and expressing the changes in the Character by variations of the

theme , is here carried to its furthest possi bilities ; every psychological change in Don Quixote is expressed with infallible certaint y

o Ein in a variation of the riginal theme . In

’ Heldenleben Str auss s power of securing variety

by changes in the thematic material, that at 2 the same time interest the ear for their own

Is akes and elucidate the programme , is seen at

r its ve y finest . In largeness of general con

ce tion s p , in the fine sense of form that control

the vast design , and in the skill with which all

the themes are made , in this or that meta

morphosis , to play organic parts in the develop ! ment of the work , it stands at the head of n n all the sympho ic poems we k ow . The r eader may b e r ecommended t o s t udy t hes e t e e-tr ans or at ons for hi s e e t er r o t he s cor e h m f m i m lf, i h f m ” a o e or t t he e of a u e H e s ou not ce l n wi h h lp g id . h ld i how even s uch a s mall fr agment as the figur e of four s emiquaver s in th e t hir d bar of t he intr oduction is put t o h t e most var ied and most expr es sive us es lat er on.

82 RICHARD STRAUSS s ar ies s n t n b s ectio , hough co sidered y it elf it has a certain humour of an essent ially poor

n s t n in it ki d , rikes one , comi g where does , as t n merely a piece of laborious stupidi y , u worthy

’ r s n of a man of St aus s ge ius . The battle n n n sectio , agai , though we must eeds admire the int ellect ual energy and the technical skill

is t n and of it , a bla a t hideous piece of work .

one n in There must be a flaw , thi ks , the mind of a man who can deliberately Spoil a great and beautiful artistic conception by inserting

s s s r Ein such mon tro ities as the e in it . Afte Heldenleben it looked as if some subtle poison

’ n St r aus s s had e tered into art , and one began

S m honia to have fears for his future . The y p

Do est c 1 0 m i a ( 9 3) did not dispel these fears . n The work made a se sation at the time , partly — because the simplicity of the subj ect papa , — mamma , and baby brought the programme ,

an at y rate , within the scope of the intelligence of the average man . People who were puzzled almost to the point of insanity by Zar athustr a

” ! ” Ueber mens chen r G and its , a id its enesende ,

s n and all the re t of that queer fau a , could recog nize at once when the baby was squealing in its bath or the lullaby was being sung over it LATER INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 83 and they had a kindly fellow-feeling for the terrible musician who now seemed to be even s one uch a as themselves . But the work , as

n ns . music , was mostly u satisfactory to musicia

as It h its great and uplifted moments , such as the love scene , and there is considerable beauty in a good deal of the music that is n written rou d the child . But the texture as a whole is less interes ting than in any other

’ St r auss s n of works , the short and s appy thematic fragments out of which he builds it contrasting badly with the great sweeping themes of the earlier symphonic poems the instrumental colour is grossly overdone ; the polyphony is often coarse and sprawling ; and the realistic effects in the score are at once so atrocious ly Ugly and s o pitiably foolish that one listens to them with regret that a composer of genius should ever have fallen so low . Since the Symphonia Domestica Strauss has not given the world any opportunity of j udging whether he has recovered his earlier balance as an ] orchestra writer , or whether he has lost it irrevocably . He has brought out no purely

al 1 0 orchestr work since 9 3 , with the exception of five Military Marches (1 906 and 84 RICHARD STRAUSS

which are quite negligible in a survey of his n evolutio . They merely say next to nothing

in a very highly coloured way . In the foregoing rapid sketch of his orches

n has con tral works , attentio been mostly cent r at ed on his development on the formal

. has side It is here that , as already been

pointed out , Strauss has given a new life and

new meaning to the symphonic poem . He

has put at once more brains , more music , and more technique into it than any of his pre

r He d ecess o s or contemporaries . has really added a new chapter to the history of musical — form a chapter one does not yet find in the text-books merely because the text-books are all so intent upon the dead that they have no f eyes for the living orm . At its best his orchestral music is as finely and firmly woven

as the best of purely abstract music could be . He has done for programme music what — Wagner did for opera taken up the stray threads that earlier men had been fumbling f with more or less ine fectively , added a great f deal of new stu f of his own , and woven it all into a fabric of undreamt-of strength of

and s texture richnes of colour . At present

86 RICHARD STRAUSS

ns n His comprehe ible to ma y of us . work , n i deed , seems filled with a greater flood of n feeli g , and with more varieties of feeling ,

n an n n He tha that of y other livi g musicia . has greatly enlarged the bound ar I es of musical express ion the blend of humour and pathos in Don uixote in n Q , particular , is somethi g

new in s not n wholly mu ic . It is emotio that

s but n all he lack , that bala ce of the faculties

on that e sees in the very greates t artists .

is s t n s in There ome hi g exces ive , his n — and one n s a s t n ature , is bou d to y , ome hi g o n small , s mething of that petty passio for flouting the Philis tine that is the mark of a mind not so free from the limitations of the

s n as it n Phili ti e imagi es itself to be . The

s t s in ugly , nervou laughter at his cri ic the Adversaries s ection of Ein Heldenleben is not merely a blot on the work it gives one a startled sense of the strain of weaknes s there

is in s t t and . Strau s , both as ar is as philosopher No doubt the virulence and the ignorance of his critics have done much to embitter him ; but to let them agitate him to the extent of making him s poil a great masterpiece in orde r to fling some of their own mud back in their LATER INSTRUMENTAL WORKS 87

a f ces is to come down to their level . No harmoniously built artist , we may be sure ,

would have lost his head like this . Beethoven

would have set his teeth , dismissed his oppo

nent s n n from his mi d , and gone on writi g for

s himself , sustained by the proud consciou ness n of his superiority . Wag er satirizes his critics ” Die M n in eistersi ger , but not feverishly or

and unkindly , not in a way that mars the general texture of his work the artis t in him was too strong to be overcome by any r ecollec n tion of the petty a noyances of daily life .

Strauss lacks this serenity of soul , this power to withdraw wholly into himself and when a man uses his mus ic to gibe venomously at people because they have gibed at him , we

- feel that he is not the complete , self poised artist one would like him to be . The earlier

TillEulens ie el works , as far as p g , have a mental balance that the later ones all lack in some L way or other , and for which no advance in grandeur of general conception or profundity of feeling can compensate us . A new orches tral work that should have the rounded unity and uninterruptedly high seriousness of Tod

’ und Ver klar ung together with the larger sweep 88 RICHARD STRAUSS

and subtler emotion of Don Quixote and Ein Heldenleben would indeed be something unique ill in modern music . W Strauss ever give us

9 as this Will he , he grows older , master the n cruder side of him , or will it conti ue to force

1 8 itself , as it has been doing since 95, further

and further into the foreground , spoiling his best work in proportion as it becomes visible !

90 RICHARD STRAUSS

t . one quali y As a matter of fact , very small

' volume will contain all the Lieder of Strauss that are Worth living with day by day . No in o where , truth , does he Show to such po r

n He adva tage on the whole as here . has

s s n and written ome good o gs , one or two

s n s n exqui ite so gs , but al o a umber that are commonplace , or dull , or pretentiously empty , n or stupid , or downright ugly . O ly those who have conscientiously worked through

s them all a few times , de irous of seeing good

In is s n can them wherever it to be ee , realize the woeful waste of time and labour that the maj ority of them represent . H ow some of them came to be written can

s A no doubt be ea ily explained . composer has n s t o er ma y call composition , and p

s - a haps the most seductive , iren like c ll of all is that of the publisher jingling what Stevenson l n n n . W n ca led the cli ki g , mi ted quids he a mus ician can get forty or fifty pounds for a

n as can t si gle lyric , Strauss now , the tempta ion to believe in the theory of his own plenary

n s s A i spiration must be irre i tible . number of his s ongs may be frankly wr itten off as not t music but merchandise . O hers are failures

92 RICHARD STRAUSS

n to have fou ded a new order of song , the ” social lyric , the expression of the life of our own day . As , however , he has chosen to set most of these modern poems to quite un fi interesting music , it is dif cult to be very grateful to him ; and though the words of

Who is Sylvia are shockingly old , most of us would prefer Schubert ’s setting of them to all the turbid cascades of notes that Strauss has poured over the words o f modern poets like Bierbaum and Mackay . There is no particular credit in setting the poems of living writers if the poems are unsuitable for music , as many of those which Strauss has composed undoubtedly are . His questionable taste in poetry rather

s implies that he is not a born mu ical lyrist , n for the true modern so g writer , like Hugo

Wolf , is prevented from choosing bad poetic material by an instinctive sense that it cannot be converted into good music . Strauss , in fact , decidedly lacks that power of harmonious and balanced structure on a small scale that

He is the first essential of the song writer . has , as we have seen , a remarkable gift for musical architecture on a large scale , but the SONGS AND CHORAL WORKS 93 smaller the ground on which he has to work

the more visibly is he hampered . A song by Wolf can be seen at once to be woven in a Single piece one broad conception dominates it all , and is instinctively felt to be implicit in all the changing details as they unfold them

’ r aus s s selves . Many of St most ambitious songs are absolutely formless , with no more organization than a j ellyfish ; the music simply wanders on from one line to another without reason and without connection . Play through

6 NO . M in Anbetun . e things like g (op 3 ,

Am U e Hers ist stumm . 1 . r (op 9 , No or f

1 (op . 4 , No . and you will have merely a queer sense of having drifted aimlessly through one key after another and from one part of

the scale to another , such vague emotions as have been stirred now and then being quite

unrelated to each other , and the song as a whole suggesting no general emotional mood

whatever . In songs like this Strauss creates no vision in us because he has had none him self to begin with he has started off Without

any central idea or feeling , and just does the n — best he can with each li e as it appears living ,

as it were , from hand to mouth until the thing 94 RICHARD STRAUSS

is n n F over . In a commu icatio to riedrich

von H aus e er 1 0 gg , in 9 3 , he told the world his

t n . For way of wri i g songs some time , he says ,

s he will have no impul e to compose at all . Then one evening he will be turning the leaves of a volume of poetry ; a poem will strike his

eye , he reads it through , it agrees with the

mood he is in , and at once the appropriate

music is instinctively fitted to it . He is in n a musical frame of mi d , and all he wants is the right poetic vessel into which to pour his

ideas . If good luck throws this in his way ,

s O n a sati factory song results . But fte , he

s t n s say , the poem tha prese ts it elf is not the right one ; then he has to bend his musical mood to fit it the best way he can he works laborious ly and without the right kind of

s enthu iasm at it . The song , in fact , is made ,

s s not born . Thi confes ion explains all his

s failures as a lyri t . Wolf always started from the poem ; he absorbed himself so utterly in

t n lived it hat for the time bei g he really it ,

' and the music with which it spontaneous ly

‘ clothed its elf w as Simply the equivalent in tone of the emotion that had penetrated the poet when he wrote the words . Strauss

96 RICHARD STRAUSS that something of the utmos t significance was being s aid ; but when we look at the song critically we see that it all amounts to very

n s r fl i little or nothi g at all . There is a upe u ty ’ of this pretentious emptiness in Str aus s s songs -pounds upon pounds of notes from which we can hardly squeeze a half-ounce Of feeling or even of meaning . And he often experiments in his songs in audacities from which even he would shrink in his orchestral works . Occa s ionall y these tricks are entertaining , as in

I ch s chwebe . 8 the charming (op 4 , No . where the faintly clashing progressions have an agreeable piquancy of their own . But in many of the songs he seems absolutely to lose himself in jungles of his own planting there

— fo r Him els are some pages as example , in m

Glitch s enu boten . 2 . e o . (op 3 , No g g ( p 37 ,

Die l zu i h . U me H r sc au . No and (op 43 ,

a er tain o n in Wenn o 1 o At c t N . Str aus s p i ( p . 3 , a dds a facetious foot not e t o t he effect t hat Singer s in th e ninet eent h cent ur y ar e r ecommend ed t o t r anspos e t he s on r o t s o nt on ar s a s e t one o er s o t at g , f m hi p i w d , mi l w , h it ma end in the k e n c it e an hi s ar t cu ar y y i whi h b g . T p i l

!

o u at on o ever is uit e ar es s . at ever the m d l i , h w , q h ml Wh n net eent cent ur ma t n of it the t ent et cent ur i h y y hi k , w i h y will pr obably s olve t h e pr oblem in the s imples t pos sible — w ay by deciding t hat t he s ong is not good enough t o b e or t s n n a t all w h i gi g . SONGS AND CHORAL WORKS 97

O — N . 3) that are sheer melodic and harmonic nonsense . People who take a malicious delight

’ in dwelling upon the uglin esses in St r aus s s orchestral works should spend a day or two with his songs ; they would find sins enough against not only beauty but against sanity to provide them with texts for a year ’ s ser mons . Strauss has not grown as a song writer in the way that he has grown as an orchestral

a n writer , gr dually evolvi g a unique personal style of his own . There is a long road between

Ein Heldenleben A us Italien and , and a bigger figure at the end of it than at the beginning but in his songs with pianoforte accompani ment there is not very much difference between

‘ 1 88 0 the Strauss of 6 and the Strauss of 1 9 6 . The ’ best songs of 1 906 are not much better than the best of 1 886 ; the bad ones of 1 886 are no worse than the worst of 1 906 and good and bad still j ostle each other cheerfully in the same opus number . Yet Strauss has grown in the sense that he has Shaken off the influence of Liszt that was so pronounced in his earlier t

. n eh h . S nsuc t . 2 songs In so gs like (op 3 , No

’ O w r s t da ein he m . Ru a 26 . (op , No and , H 98 RICHARD STRAUSS

meine S eele . 2 . (op 7 , No the manner is quite — Lisztian a way of working conscientiously fr om one line to another without any thought f n of unity of total e fect , of paddi g out a rather inexpressive vocal theme with a multitude of

and notes in the piano , of dragging a simple poem out to a quite Inordinate musical length .

’ Liszt s songs often suffer from this kind of elephantiasis ; the delicate tissues of a little poem swell in the mos t alarmingly dropsical way under the treatment of the musician . He

Die todte N achti all cannot set g , for instance , n to music , without diggi g a grave for the bi poor little bird g enough for a turkey . There is something of this over-elabor at lon

’ in Str aus s s earlier style ; it can be seen in such songs as Hofien und wieder verzagen

1 M ein He ist t . . rz s umm (op 9 , No and

1 NO ll (op . 9 , . and others , as we as in the three already mentioned . Few of his songs have the concision and — the simplicity the air of not employing one note too many— that makes Wolf ’ s work so a dmirable The simple , indeed , is rather out

’ of St r aus s s reach as a rule when he attempts

' it e o Du ei s He zens Kr elein . , as in m n r n (op

1 00 RICHARD STRAUSS

l in he achieves something wholly origina , as

Lied des Steinklo er s the powerful fi (op . 49 ,

D A beit . er r s mann O . No and ( p 39 , No . where the social humanism of the emotion is n very thrilli g .

of Like Wolf, Strauss throws much the burden of expression in his songs on to the

’ accompaniment , though he rarely shows Wolf s art of blending the piano part and the voice n part in o e indivisible whole . With Strauss not only is the voice part sometimes over n shadowed by the accompa iment , but the latter is often over-elaborated till it becomes a mere hindrance instead of a help to the feel

His ing . style , in truth , is not a piano style . He keeps up a higher average level of interest in r his songs with orchest al accompaniment , where he has the kind of colour he can make most suggestive and the breadth of canvas that . E suits him . ven here he can be merely noisily

Nitchtlicher Gan pretentious and fussy , as in g N . O . 2 (op 44 , ) but such powerful and fluent tt N o ur no . pieces of work as the (op 44 , No .

Pil e s M e H mnus . . r or n y (op 33 , No and g g t e lied . (op . 33 , No give us h sensation , which so many of the pianoforte songs do not, SONGS AND CHORAL WORKS 1 0 1 that here we are in the company of the greater

Strauss . Of the whole of his large output of songs , probably not more than twenty or twenty-five can rank as perfect or appr oxi mately perfect successes . Space permits only the briefest reference to

’ tr a Wa d er s S uss s . n r choral—works The early Stur mlied ( 1 884 6) Showed him to have a thorough command of choral polyphony he obviously delights in the opportunities the medium affords him for stupendous effects of

n it s vocal tone . In its poetic feeli g , vigour ,

one and its ease of workmanship , it is of the finest pieces of choral and orchestral writing of the nineteenth century . The orchestra is agam combined with the voices in the Taillefer

in which there are solo voices also , and

B ar den esan in the g g The former , S though a trifle unequal , is a most pirited piece

B de e of work . Neither here nor in the ar ng sang is there much attempt at subtlety in the choral writing ; the effects achieved are

o mostly th se of sheer depth and massiveness .

B ar den es an The g g is magnificently barbaric , though it slightly tries one ’ s gravity as the chorus thunders out the names of the tribes 1 02 RICHARD STRAUSS

H a e Cher Y h t Y r i , y us eans ! e C a t ees ! e Ma s ans !

Y e Semnonians !

Y e B r ukt er ians ! Y e War nians ! Y e G othOnians !

Y e L ew ovians !

Y e R eud inians ! Y e H ermund urians ! Y e N ar is kian s ! Y e Q uad ees !

Y e Tr evir ians ! Y e N ervians ! Y e Nehmetians ! Y e Wangt onians and so on Of the unaccompanied choruses of Strauss the most striking are the two anthems of n opus 34 , written in sixteen parts . The seco d t is the more beautiful of the two , but bo h are

s ma terly pieces of work . The three male voice chorus es of Opus 45 and the two of opus 42 are also for the most par t brilliant and

S oldatenlied expressive . The for male voices ,

published without opus number , is merely a

’ eu d es rit boisterous f p , no doubt greatly relis hed by the German student in his more festive moments This chapter seems the most appropriate place also in which to refer to the recitation n music to Enoch Arden (op . writte at

’ Str aus s s - n Poss ar t the request of actor frie d , . The union of the speaking voice with the pianoforte is at the best a detestable one .

CHAPTE R V

THE OPERAS

’ ! O H Str aus s s Guntr am B T first opera , , and his

F euer snot n Ger second , , are eglected now in many , and there are many who think that

S alome , in spite of the magnificence of much

l n of the music , wil before lo g share the same fate . There are special reasons in each case for this . They lie mostly in the nature of the

’ subj ects and t he libretti ; St r auss s operatic music is quite as remarkable as his orchestral music , and in the opera house , as in the concert room , he has , in spite of his faults , no equal among contemporary composers for depth and range of expression . The libretto of S alome is based on Frau

St r aus s calls Guntr am and S alome ! Musikdr amas ! and F euer s not a S n e c t We ma conven ent i gg di h . y i ly ca t e all t r ee o er as ec n n t o o o t he eut on c ll h m h p , d li i g f ll w T i mind in it s mania for giving differ ent names t o What is es s ent ially the s ame t hing THE OPE RAS 1 05

’ Hedwig Lachmann s German translation of Oscar Wilde ’ s play Strauss has done nothing

more than abridge this for his own purposes .

Guntr am The libretto of , however , is entirely his own work ; that of F euer s not is by Erns t

Wolzo en von g , but the idea of it was given him by Strauss , and it is probable that the musician had something to do with the com

of position the poem . The story of Guntr am was suggested to Strauss by a newspaper article on certain secret societies that existed in Austria in the M iddle Ages , whose obj ects were partly artistic ,

G a partly religious and ethical . untram is young knight who belongs to one of these So cieties , the members of which call themselves

! ! D ie Streiter der Liebe ( The Champions of Love their office is to soften the hearts

of men by their songs , and so to lead mankind Gun to universal brotherhood through love .

tram has set out upon this work , accompanied

Fr iedhold by an older member of the order , he is to intercede with the tyrant Duke Robert

Fr ied hold is s a Dr r t ur Se t o b e eant t o id by . A h idl m s u est e an er R t t er H e s e es cer t a n r es e ances gg Al x d i . i mbl ’ bet ween t he doct r ines of Guntr a m and t hos e o f Rit t er s Opera Wem d ie Kr one ! 1 06 RICHARD STRAUSS

his s for sorely oppres ed subj ects . The scene o n G pens in a woodla d glade , where untram is sharing his bread and fruit with a number H of these poor people . unger and misery t he li stalk through ravaged land ; a rebel on , into which the people were goaded by their f d n su ferings , has just been mercilessly put ow .

’ D Fr eihild M of The uke s wife , the other the Poor —who at one time did what she could to alleviate their lot , has now, they tell G untram , been forbidden by her husband to help them . The poor people leave the scene ,

b Fr iedhold followed y , and in a long mono logue Guntram meditates upon the beauty and innocence of nature and of his own child f n t hood , and upon the su feri g brough into this idyllic world by the cruel passions of men .

He springs to his feet , and calls in fervent words upon the Saviour to help him to touch the heart of the Duke by his song and to bring

He t peace to the oppressed poor . is abou to

s leave when a woman ru hes in distractedly , intending to drown herself in the lake at the

t e Fr eihild back of h glade . This proves to be , who has been reduced to despair by the r e fus al of her hated husband to allow her to

1 08 RICHARD STRAUSS ruler . At last Guntram denounces Robert to his face ; the latter attacks him with his G sword , but untram thrusts first , and Robert a - . r e falls dead All horror struck . The old Duke at first regards the crime as a pre meditated one , the obj ect being to seize ’ n d Robert s ki gdom . He gravely and sa ly asks Guntram to complete his work by slaying him also ; the minstrel, however , is lost in t amazement at his own act , and merely s ares

on into space , unconscious of what is g oing D around him . In time the old uke recovers his self-control and his command over the previously wavering vassals ; at his orders

G i they arrest untram , impr son him , and then march away to wreak new vengeance on the h l ! rebels . Only Fr ei i d and the court Fool are left the latter is a sympathetic soul who feels for the poor people , and is at the same time deeply but humbly in love with his tender ’ ihild s mistress . In Fr e breast a strong love

[ has grown up for Guntram,who has delivered her from a hated spouse and the land from a

fl ee cruel tyrant . She conceives the plan of in F001 g with him , and prevails upon the to 1 . F00 secure his escape This the does , though THE OPERAS 1 09 he mournfully recognizes that it means he will never see her again he promises to drug the drink of the gaolers and take Fr eihild into the

s pri on cell . The third Act takes place in a dungeon ; outside can be heard the chant of the monks un who watch round the body of Robert . G m tra , a prey to remorse , is haunted by the spectre of the man he has murdered . He is roused from his painful reverie by the entrance

Fr eihild of , who makes a passionate confession of the love his noble song has aroused in her bosom , and implores him to fly with her . To her astonishment and despair he announces n his intention of leavi g her for ever . Just as he Fr iedhold runs to the door , enters he has been sent by the Brotherhood of the Streiter der Liebe to bid Guntram to appear before them , and make his atonement for having slain a man and so trans gressed the laws of the order , which are founded wholly on love . G r unt am refuses to go , and then explains

Fr iedhold r eihild H e everything to and F . did has indeed committed a crime . But this not consist in the mere fact of killing the Duke . The act itself was good it was the motive of 1 1 0 RICHARD STRAUSS

w as the act that bad , and the real motive , he has n found on exami ation of his own heart ,

as Fr eihild t s no w earthly love for . For hi organizat ion of men can punis h him his — punishment can come only from hims elf he ihild must renounce Fr e for ever . Previously he had believed in the outward laws that bind n men now , illuminated by sad experie ce , he knows that no one but hims elf has jurisdiction over the spiritual part of him

E ine einzige St unde H at c er euc t et mi h l h ,

D oc et zt bin e ns a h j i m , Allein mit mir s elbst ! M einen L eid hilft e inzig nur Meines H er z ens Dr ang ; M eine Schuld Siihnt nur

' Die B us se meiner Wahl ; Mein L eben bes t immt M eines Geist es G es et z ; M ein G ot t s pr icht

r h s t nur z mir D u ch mic elbs u . The Fool enters with the news that the

D has n uke bee killed , and the whole land

r ihild is no Gun rej oices that F e w its ruler . t ram bids her ass ume the office and fill it for the good of the poor and the suffering . In capable of speaking , she kneels down and

1 1 2 RICHARD STRAUSS

the assembly , reminds us of Tannhauser , and there are other situations that suggest

s s n Par ifal . There is omethi g of the Wald

’ weben in Guntram s poetic reverie in the first Act there are suggestions now and t hen of Lohengrin and one of the love themes is so plainly taken from Tristan that one wonders how Strauss himself could help t in no ic g the close similarity . There are , too , a few pages in the score where the writing is thick and lustreless , and one or two places where the effort to be characteristic -to — paint in music has caused Straus s to

’ music that is write merely forced and ugly , as in the cas e of the theme typifying the rigid ! laws of the Brotherhood, which is almost as violently illogical as some of the writing in n the so gs . But the bulk of the score touches a high plane of beauty , and curiously enough , in spite of the occasional Wagnerism of the

s mu ic , the style throughout gives one the impression of being personal to Strauss . The high seriousness of the work and the spirit of humanism that breathes from it are exceed

S ee for e a e t he s t at e ent of it at t he e nn n , x mpl , m b gi i g f th r u e t e hir Act o e p el d t o h t d . THE OPERAS 1 1 3 in l Guntr am g y impressive alone , with its ardour of love , and above all , the tenderness f of its sympathies for humanity , is su ficient to refute the superficial notion that Strauss is merely a clever intellectualist playing at being a musician . Some depth of thought and very considerable depth of feeling have gone to the making of the work . The character drawing G is a little inexpert here and there . untram

Fr eihild and and the moaning , lamenting people are clearly and convincingly limned ; the others are not characterized in the music with anything like the same veracity . The ’ all Str aus s musical tissue is , like s work , end lessly rich in ideas ; there is a grandeur of ma s - nner at time , a long sustained energy of invention , that is to be met with elsewhere

o in no ther operas but those of Wagner . And Strauss shows in Guntr am the same power as in his orchestral w orks of devising themes that are both expressive in themselves and fertile in possibilities of development the various metamorphoses of the leading motives and their interplay with each other are carried

tr a m out in a masterly way . Altogether Gun

a wi is great work , the many merits of which ll 1 1 4 RICHARD STRAUSS

perhaps some day res tore it to the stage from

now t s which it is mos unju tly banished . Some eight or nine years elapsed between the compos ition of Guntr am and that of

eue s ot s F r n . In the interval Strau s had written

Till E ulens ie el Als o s r ach Zar athustr a Don p g , p ,

uixote Ein Heldenleben 1 00 Q and , so that by 9

his individual style was fully made , and the

F euer s not score of is wholly his own , not a

’ n trace of Wagner s manner bei g visible . H e got the idea of the opera from an old

the t Das er saga of Netherlands , en itled ” n zu Aud naer d e losche e Feuer e . This tells of n a certai young man who loved a maiden ,

and who , however , was cold contemptuous n n towards him . At last , prete di g to relax

She t l her severity , old him that if he wou d place himself in a large basket on the follow ing night s he would draw it and him up to her chamber . The young man was in the basket punct ually at midnight but the false maiden only drew him half-way up the wall of the

s and t s s f hou e lef him u pended there , to su fer

n the n s i morni g the gibe of all the townspeople .

s n n t When he was relea ed , bur i g wi h rage , he went t o an old magician in a neighbouring

1 1 6 RICHARD STRAUSS

of — The action the opera which , by the way , — is in one Act only takes place in Munich on midsummer eve in the fabelhafte Unzeit - (legendary No Time) . The scene is laid in

r a s e n the Sentlinge g s . The childr en are goi g from house to house , in accordance with an Old custom , begging wood for their fires .

F Bur er meist er Sentlin er rom the g , Ortolf g ,

his they get a large basketful of wood , while

Diemut beautiful young daughter , , and her three companions give them sweetmeats and dainties . All their thumping at the door of the house on the opposite side of the street f produces for a long time no e fect . The

o neighbours give varied descripti ns , favour

o able and unfav urable , of the inhabitant ,

s fromwhich it appear that he is a young man ,

nr ad Ku by name , who lives in complete

m n wn . solitariness , and of who little is k o At length he appears at the door of the house , looking absorbed and puzzled at the noise ;

m s t he has been im ersed in study , and find i hard at first to comprehend what is going on in the outer world . When he finally understands that it is midsummer eve , and that the j ovial fires are being lit by the chil THE OPE RAS 1 1 7

dren , a revulsion of feeling comes over him ; l he wil give up dreaming , and live and enj oy

like the rest . He tells the children to take as much of the wood of his house as they can

as his contribution to their festival, and sets them ~ the example by tearing the rotten old M window shutters to pieces . eanwhile , he has been gazmg with ardent admiration at Diemut ; and he suddenly signalizes his return to humanity by kissing her on the

mouth , much to her annoyance and to the

scandal of the burghers . Th e crowd leaves the stage , going towards i the gate where the fire is to be kindled . D e

ut wr m , nursing her ong and planning ven

’ eance g , is seated at the balcony of her father s

Kunr ad house . , in the street below, con

fesses his love to her . She appears to yield

to his request to be admitted to her chamber, and points to the basket that has contained

the wood given by her father to the children . He enters it ; she draws it up part of the

way , and then pretends that her strength is l D n unequal to pul ing it any further . ow n below, her three girl companions have bee

a watching the progress of the pl n . They 1 1 8 RICHARD STRAUSS

n the laughi gly call the citizens to spot , and Kunr ad is at last aware of how he has been I n duped . vehement tones he calls on his magician friend to help him by extinguishing th t all e ligh s and fires in the town . This

E one o n immediately happens . very n w haste s t n n to the house the ci ize s are a gry , the chil dren are s cared ; the only cont ented souls n n are a number of lovi g you g couples , who softly express t heir cordial satis faction with

s n n n n B t the udde darke i g of the tow . y his time Kunr ad has swung himself on to the

n s balco y of the house , whence he laugh at

n the crowd below . Then he hara gues them at length he t ells them that in his old hous e there once dwelt a great master , one Reichardt , who did the town great good and brought it great honour upon , for which he received

He nothing but envy and hatred . himself has been called to continue the work of the

s s n old master , but for this he need the su tai n s ing light of womanly love . The exti gui h ing of the fires has been a punishment for ’ Diemut s scornful conduct ; and they will not be relit unt il she has done appropriate

n Diemut as pe ance for her crime . , who h

1 20 RICHARD STRAUSS

ut most s trength and daring of technique and the mos t gorgeous wealth of orchestral colour ing go hand in hand with the mos t exquisite s n s s weet e s and naivete. Pa sages like the

s n t Kunr ad love ce e , or tha in which declares

Diemut his love for , touch as high a point of

as s10nat e as s s c p beauty Strau has ever rea hed , except perhaps here and there in S alome. n t On the other hand , o hing could surpass , - n for pure , simple , heart easi g charm , the melodies in which he has delineated the more

s homely features of the story , uch as the merry-making of the children and the collo quies of the townspeople . He uses several

n - n s t old Mu ich folk so g , but , deligh ful as they

t own are , none of hem is equal to his melodies — in the folk-song manner the lovely choruses

the n of Childre , for example , and the melody sung by Diemut near the beginning of the

she the at opera , where distributes sweetme s th li n e . amo g ttle ones The whole work , in fact , with its glow and vivacity , gives one the impression of having been a p ure delight to ’ the composer . There are comparatively few instances in it of that tendency to false or exaggerated characterization t hat mars so THE OPERAS 1 2 1

’ much of St r aus s s later work as a whole the

s opera is notably lucid and re trained , in spite of its passion and its constant high spirits . The reason of its failure to keep the stage must be sought elsewhere than in the music . Perhaps the story does not commend itself to all tastes ; and it must be confessed that once or twice , especially when the populace

’ is waiting for the light to appear in Diemut s n chamber , the la guage is of a freedom that has no parallel in opera libretti . To many n in people , no doubt , the ti cture the score of

Ueber br ettl Wolzo en the spirit , of which g

G a is the accredited representative in erm ny , is not altogether agreeable ; though one would think that people have only t o take the fundamentally naive atmosphere of the work as it is to enj oy it all thoroughly .

Perhaps , again , the satirical tendency of some parts of the opera tells against it . Strauss has used it as a mouthpiece for his own feeling of soreness at the comparative neglect that had been his lot in his own native City of

Munich . It had been similarly ungrateful to Wagner in the sixties , during the patronage of him by King Ludwig the intrigues against 1 22 RICHARD STRAUSS

him were at one time sufficiently strong - to

a drive him from the town . The old m ster

’ Kunr ad s Reichardt who once inhabited house , and who had been so ungratefully treated

by the burghers , is of course , Richard Wagner as Kunr ad speaks of his power over the spirits the orchestra s oftly gives out the Valhalla ” s n motive from the Rhinegold . The allu io n is driven home still more pate tly later on ,

n n whe , in a few neat li es , there are plays

n s t W n s upo the name of bo h ag er and Strau s ,

Wolzo en as well as that of the librettist , g

’ M t er R i h r a n k am a u n i e . e s e a d t W e Sei ( . i c s ) g llz e a t E uc vor g w g h ,

a t r e t hr d n n r s em T r D i b I e Wag e a u d ho . D en bOs en Fe n d en t r e t Ihr nit aus i d , i b , D er s t ellt s ich E uch immer a u fs N eue zum St r aus s ’ Wo o en manni e a cke r e L eut hl z g g w , Die ein a en es W r ken r eut w g d i f , F er n a us d em R e c in d em I s ar au i h g , Zu w i felfr eudi em N t r p g es e b au .

And that Strauss regards hims elf as the s uccessor of Wagner is made quit e clear to us by the fact that Kunr ad inhabit s Meist er

’ Richar dt s and old house , has received from the old master some excellent advice as t o how to do his work and how t o t reat the

1 24 RICHARD STRAUSS

n beauty of the young pri cess , Salome , who n n is in the banqueti g hall , feasti g with Herod,

her mother Herodias , and the Court . While a page tries to dissuade him from his mad

s pa sion for the princess , which presages evil

for him, the voice of John is heard from the

n e cistern , prophesyi g the coming of a mighti r

One than he . Further conversation goes on among the soldiers ; then Salome leaves the

banqueting hall and comes upon the terrace . She has been unable to endure any longer

’ the amorous glances that Herod , her mother s

husband , has been casting at her , and has come t o h the terrace for the coolness of t e air . The Baptist ’ s voice is again heard Salome is

arrested by it ; she inquires who he is , and learns that it is the prophet of whom Herod

Her and Herodias are both afraid . curiosity ll is aroused , and she fina y so works upon the love of Narraboth for her that he disobeys the strict orders of Herod and has the Baptist brought up from the cistern . He immediately breaks out into denunciations of Herodias and

s her sins . Salome conceive a mad passion for s a nd him ; it gradually overmaster her, she gives vent to he r wild longing for him in THE OPERAS 1 25

language of the utmost abandonment , the w recurring burden of which is , I ill kiss thy

okanaan mouth, J Narraboth , distracted by love for Salome and fear of the vengeance of

Herod , slays himself at her feet but neither this nor the exhortations of John can restore her to sanity . At last he curses her and goes down again into the cistern . Herod , Herodias , and the

Court come upon the scene . He is excited with wine , nervous , superstitious , and ill at ill ease , imagining omens to be all around him . He is again pursuing Salome when the voice of John is once more heard from the cistern . ’ Herod declines to yield to Her odias s desire that the prophet shall be given up to the

Jews , for he is a holy man who has seen ” o G d . This leads to a dispute among the Jews who are present as to the sanctity of

an d e John , as to whether any on Since Elias — has seen God a grotesque and comic musical

’ d o tour e f r ce. John s further denunciations

o s he of Her dia anger r , and when Salome finally dances in response to the entreaties

of Herod , who promises her any reward she may ask , even unto the half of his kingdom , 1 2 6 RICHARD STRAUSS Herodias supports her daughter in her demand H for the head of John . erod, sobered now , for a long time tries to dis suade Salome from this at las t he is compelled to give the ring

of death to a soldier , who takes it to the

s executioner . Salome li tens in silence at the

wall of the cistern , until the great black arm

s of the executioner ri es , bearing the head of

John on a silver shield . All are horrified t H excep erodias , who smiles , and Salome , who seizes the head and delivers a long and

s s He pa ionate address to it . would not let

l will s her kiss his lips , she says now she ki s

s them . If thou hadst een me thou wouldst I a have loved me . am thirst for thy beauty I am hungry for thy body , and neither wine H ’ nor fruit can appease my desire . erod s terror deepens ; he bids the slaves put out n the torches , and the stage is in dark ess .

’ l s Sa ome s mad rhap ody still goes on , and at las t becomes unendurable by the terrified H A n erod . ray of moo light illumines her ; ” H n erod calls out wildly , Kill that woma , and the soldiers crush her beneath their shields . It is easy enough to talk en thusiastically of

1 28 RICHARD STRAUSS ties are created simply for the pleasure of n overcoming , or tryi g to overcome , them ; the straight road to the desired end is ostenta

iousl t y avoided simply because it is straight . And although it is almost impossible for any man yet t o make up his mind finally about

S alome , it is quite clear that it marks no improvement on Don Quixote and Ein Helden leben and the Symphonic; Domestica in the one point in which improvement would have

’ r a ss been most welcome . While St u s genius certainly develops in strength and beauty in

one direction , it as certainly shows degenera

tion in another . We get from the opera the same impression as from the later orchestral n works , that Strauss is incapable now of maki g a large picture sane and harmonious through out somewhere or other he must spoil it by

extravagance and perversity and foolishness . He can do every clever and astounding thing that a musician could do what he apparently cannot or will not do now is to wr ite twenty continuous pages that shall be wholly beautiful

and unmarred by bravado or by folly . THE OPE RAS 1 29

It is premature , of course , to attempt to appraise the final value of a musician who is - still only in his forty fourth year , and who h may , therefore, in the normal course of t ings ,

' be expected to have many years of activity f yet before him . The di ficulty is all the greater

in the case of a man like Strauss , each one of whose works seems to inhabit a new mental

world and to create a new musical style .

” m of Nevertheless , so uch his music has been long familiar to us that it is possible to look

a t it critically and even historically . One

thing is certain , that he has put into music

s a greater energy , a greater stres of feeling

and a greater weight of thinking , than any

other composer of the day . There is not one of his larger works since Aus I when that is not different in outlook and in idiom from 3 all . the rest Like Wagner and Wolf, he is Protean ; his sympathies seem to have no w restrictions , and his idiom varies ith almost

No every work he writes . musician , indeed ,

r s o has ever epeated himself less , in large an

output , than Strauss has done . His style is marked by no constantly recurring manner wi in isms , such as we meet th the works of x 1 30 RICHARD STRAUSS — other men the phras e-repetitions of Tchai

kovski the - n , for example , arpeggio bor melo d B - G ies of rahms , the two bar limp of rieg , or the slavery of Debussy to certain favourite

’ St r aus s s harmonic combinations . melodies

and harmonies are endlessly new . There is a Strauss manner in orchestration that can be imitated because the factors of it the instruments— are the same for every one but there is no Strauss manner in melody

or harmony that can be imitated , for these are never wholly the same in two successive works . There is only one characteristic of

can his melodies that be detached by analysis , and this is not im' itable in a way that could deceive any one who knows the originals ;

‘ his melodic line is not able for the great sweep of its curve , the heights and depths it com

” pas ses within a bar or tw o . This freedom of line is , indeed , one of the reasons for the impression ! of superabundant energy that so ’ many of St r auss s melodies give us . Harmonically he has apparently not inno vat ed D s so much as ebus y , but then he is always master of his harmonies , can always / hink his t see and t way through hem , which

1 32 RICHARD STRAUSS

n s freakish ess , which hardly eems likely

’ probably sounds differently in Str aus s s ear

r from what it does in ours . It must be e membered , too , that his style is often highly polyphonic ; and many a sequence in his orchestral works that seems obscure to the man in the street is perfectly intelligible if listened to with the polyphonic as well as the harmonic ear . In orchestration he is an acknowledged

s master . It is quite true that he is sometime excessively noisy , and that he often falls a victim to the modern mania for using a pot of paint where a mere brushful would do equally

well or better . There are plenty of passages

in his later works where the means employed ,

fi

the number of notes written , and the amount of blowing or scraping or thumping done by

the players in the orchestra , are out of all proportion to the effect obtained ; as he him ’ self has happily put it in his edition of Berlioz s treatise on instrumentation—where he warns young composers against the follies of over colouring which he constantly commits him self— it is not worth while sending out an the army corps to catch a skirmisher . But on THE OPE RAS 1 33 whole his orchestration is the most daring

’ and successful thing of its kind since Berlioz s . It has not the almost infallible certainty of

the scoring of men like Wagner and Elgar , who love sheer beauty of orchestral colour too much to play any tricks with it but in spite of its many uglinesses and frequent miscalculations it is a marvellous storehouse - of new and wonderful effects of tone colour . What will be the ultimate result of some of

His his innovations it is hard to say . appetite - for increased wood wind , horns , and brass ,

as for new instruments , such the heckelphone

Salome inst r u that is used in , and for older a ments , such as the saxophone , th t are not

part of the ordinary orchestra, seems to grow with what it feeds on . To many of us a lot

of this colour , which at best only thickens the picture instead of illuminating it , appears wholly superfluous ; the score of the Sym

' homa Domestica n p , for example , would sou d just as well with a third of the notes and several of the players omitted . But it is hopeless to appeal to the reason of composers in this matter and the only satisfaction , the only hope of salvation for music and for our 1 34 RICHARD STRAUSS

s is t t t s ear , ha the ma erial con ideration of expense will always do s omething at least to

a check this h emorrhage of notes . Composers will some day have to choos e between writing

t s orchestral works , wi h scores of in truments , for merely mental performance , and writing works t hat are within the financial possibilities n of the average co cert society or opera house .

‘ ’ This excess of orchestration in Str aus s s later works is only part of a general tendency to excess t hat has become increasingly evident —in during the last few years . On all s ides his choice of subj ects as well as in his treat

his ment of them , in harmonic system and his — orchestral technique he shows a disposition to an extravagance that will ultimately do

a ma his art no good . Wh t the cause of this y

s be it i hard to say . Some of it may be due to physical and mental overstrain , the result of a more strenuous life than any man who wis hes to keep his bram and nervous system ’ at their best has any right to live Str auss s youthful balance and athletic self-control may have been partly destroyed . Some of

t he t n it , on o her ha d , may come from a deliberat e int ention t o s t agger humanity .

1 36 RICHARD STRAUSS

t of material imi ation , but in the high sense that wit h him mus ical character drawing has become extraordinarily poignant and veracious . Such humour and such pathos as t hos e of

D on uixote n Q , for example , represe t a quite

w s ne phas e of musical p ychology . He has got away from the wigs and tight s and the s s W his tage apparatu of agner , and by music alone paints for us the kind of men and women

nfor tu we see around us day by day . But u

nat el his n t s y indiscrimi a e wor hip of reality , together with an unexampled clevernes s of

s technique , has led him to attempt to expres

n He too much i music . is apt to become too

1ct or ial s s . p , too external , too crudely ugge tive And the very vehemence of these at tempts will bring about all the s ooner the general reaction that is bound to come in European

s v 51 n mu ic , a re er o to Simpler methods and

r l s more pu e y emotional moods . Perhap he W and himself , as he grows older Wiser , may lead

At s t s admir t his react ion . pre ent his grea e t er s cannot help admit t ing mournfully that for s ome years now he has shown a regrettable

s t n lack of arti ic balance . Nothi g that he does now is pure gold throughout one listens THE OPE RAS 1 37 to the finer pages in all his later music as the

’ labourer s son in Marius the E picurean watched his father at work at the brick-kiln with a sorrowful distaste for the din and

His O dirt . new pera; which is to be pro duced a e rly next year , will probably Show Whether he is going to realize our best hopes or our worst fears . COMPOSITIONS OF RICHARD STRAUSS !

u L est va ar c for r c es t r a 1 8 1 . Op s TF i l M h O h , 7 uar t et in A ma or for 2 o ns o a Q j Vi li , Vi l , and o once o 1 881 Vi l ll , .

i for an r 1 1 v eces o o t 88 . Fi e P Pi f e ,

a in B m nor f r ano or t 1 881 . . onat o 5 S i Pi f e, onat a in ma or for nc and 6 . S F j Violo ello — ano 1 882 . Pi , 3 er nad in E fl at for W nd nst r um nts 7 . S e e i I e , — 1 882 3 .

oncer t o in D m nor for o n and 8 . C i Vi li — r c est r a 1 882 . O h , 3 t mmun s b der for ano or t 1 882— 9 . S i g il Pi f e, 3

Auf s t Wald s fa . 1 . illem e p d A a n ns m r e . 2 . ei e Qu lle

. nt r me o 3 I e zz . Tr a mer i 4 . u e .

Haidebild . 5 . — 1 0 . E t s on s 1 882 igh g , 3 Z 1 ue nun . . ig g

N c ts . 2 . i h

M es s r s r e t o H er kel Gr e on on a ent s : . a at L d g B i k pf , 54 ,

M ar or ou S t r e et on on . lb gh , L d , W i s on n e r h O us 1 N o . 2 s a t e oe 1 p , , g Ei k h p m n I t w a s u s e in t h e St r aus s nu er o f by U hla d . p bli h d mb Die Mus anuar The s a e oe h as een ik (J y, m p m b

s et Str aus s a s o us N o . . by p 4 7 , 4 O us is a Concer t ver t ur e in C nor t at h a s 1 p 4 O , mi , h n e een s e ot y t b publi h d .

1 40 RICHARD STRAUSS

1 1 88 us . L otos blatter on s Op 9 Six S g , 7

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4 . O s iisser Mai .

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1 D r A . . e bend H 2 m . . y ne D r t ns on on Quixote. Fantastic Va ia io a v r s u r 01 Che ale e q e Theme, for La ge h c est r a 8 . , £ 97 1 42 RICHARD STRAUSS

r 1 8 - us 6 . ou on s 8 Op 3 F S g , 97 Da R 1 d . . s os enban

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1 44 RICHARD STRAUSS

us . E t on s 1 02 Op 49 igh S g , 9 l 1 Walds e i keit . . g ll M In goldener Fii e .

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6 . on s 1 06 5 Six S g , 9

d . 1 . Gefun en l . a 2 B indenkl ge .

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geh land . T r 1 . wo t s 06. 57 Mili a y Marche , 9

WORKS WITHOUT OPUS NUMBERS

B r s for ano nd t a 1 — u e a r c es r 88 . le k Pi O h , 4 5 - o d at nl d for a vo c or us 1 00 . S l e ie , M le i e Ch , 9 — r e ar c es 1 06 . Th e M h , 9 7