RICHARD STRAUSS EIN HELDENLEBEN BURLESKE Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra Marc Albrecht Chief Conductor Denis Kozhukhin Piano Richard Strauss (1864-1949) 1 Burleske in D minor (1890) 20. 02 Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) (1899) 2 “Der Held” (The Hero) 4. 07 3 “Des Helden Widersacher” (The Hero’s Adversaries) 3. 14 4 “Des Helden Gefährtin” (The Hero’s Companion) 12. 35 5 “Des Helden Walstatt” (The Hero at Battle) 6. 49 6 “Des Helden Friedenswerke” (The Hero’s Works of Peace) 6. 08 7 “Des Helden Weltflucht und Vollendung” 11. 49 (The Hero’s Retirement from this World and Completion) Total playing time: 64. 51 Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra Marc Albrecht, Chief Conductor Vadim Tsibulevsky, Concertmaster Denis Kozhukhin, piano (Burleske) Unruly farce and the conductor and pianist Hans von later recalled further details from von to “purely musical content”. megalomaniacal epic Bülow. Under his “suggestive influence” Bülow’s defensive tirade: the piece was the 21-year-old Strauss developed a “unpianistic and the stretches too great Barely four and a half years later, on veritable “Brahms passion”. How fitting, for him”, because “he could hardly span June 21, 1890, the premiere of the Thoughts on Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben then, that it was Brahms himself who an octave with his small hands.” abandoned Burleske took place in and Burleske first performed his Fourth Symphony in Eisenach. Strauss himself conducted, Meiningen on October 25, 1885. It was And what was Strauss’s reaction to von and the dedicatee, pianist Eugen Burleske for piano and orchestra under these conditions that Strauss Bülow’s rebuff? He realised that the d’Albert, who would later compose the composed the Burleske for piano and Burleske was just “inhumanly difficult” opera Tiefland, and who had amicably “On the 1st of October, 1885, in my new orchestra in D minor − which he had for the soloist, so simply left the piece adopted the work, was the soloist. position, I began an apprenticeship intended to be performed by his mentor alone for four years. In the meantime Following the composition of his first which could not have been more Bülow − between November 1885 he followed a consistently new tone poems, Strauss was very clear interesting, impressive and − amusing. and February 24, 1886. But the piece, compositional path, one which led to a regarding the Burleske (at the same Every morning, between 9 and 12 originally entitled Scherzo, was rejected new music, freed from the conservative time apologising to his friend Ritter). o’clock, those memorable rehearsals by Bülow: “A different hand position on approach maintained by Bülow, free of The work represented for him an era took place, which only Bülow could every beat − do you think I’m going to the Brahmsian stamp. Strauss became “well beyond which I have moved, and have led. The vision of the works that sit down for four weeks to study such a acquainted with, and then befriended, to which I can no longer subscribe with he rehearsed (all by heart) during thorny piece?” Amazing thoughts from the composer and violinist Alexander full conviction.” This renunciation of his that period, has been fixed in my mind an exceptional pianist, considering that Ritter, a connection which led him own work certainly played a significant ever since.” It is with these positive Bülow had nurtured Tchaikovsky’s 1875 to fall under the spell of the writings role in the piece’s difficult reception words that Richard Strauss reminisced B-minor concerto from its inception, a of Schopenhauer and Wagner. In the over the following decades. The Burleske about the beginning of his time as piece that the initial dedicatee Nikolai famous letter of August 24, 1888 to would not become part of the standard Vice-Kapellmeister of the Meininger Rubinstein had indignantly rejected von Bülow, Strauss established a clear repertoire of the great pianists for a Hofkapelle, an appointment made by − a remarkably similar story. Strauss position for himself, and bade farewell long time, and was long regarded as English an early, marginal work within Strauss’s note timpani (!) solo which repeatedly much more than just “Brahmsianism”, Ein Heldenleben is programmatic oeuvre. appears throughout the piece at critical is reserved for the timpani. Belatedly, music without a literary model, based transition points within the sonata in January, 1891 von Bülow told rather on a fictitious storyline. And Although there is clearly overwhelming form. The soloist’s first entry begins Brahms that he had revised his opinion in such a self-confident and self- direct and indirect influence from with a heavy dotted rhythm (typical regarding his initial, blunt rejection conscious man as Strauss, it comes Brahms’ music, especially the Second for Brahms), but after only a few bars of the piece: “Strauss’s Burleske is as no surprise that the subject of Piano Concerto in D minor, Strauss goes is interrupted by a coarsely comical decidedly brilliant, yet, on the other the heroic life depicted bears more far beyond purely derivative similarity descending chromatic line. As for the hand, also quite frightening.” than a rudimentary autobiographical in his own D-minor work: Brahms is key – actually, there is no clear tonality. trait. Strauss gave each of the several not imitated, but rather − under the Perhaps the humorous mischief of Till Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) sections of this gigantic work a title, guise of burlesque (Italian burla = a Eulenspiegel is already at work here. to be understood as a thematic basis: joke, a farce) − parodied, the Brahms Strauss controls the musical material Ein Heldenleben is the last of Richard The Hero, The Hero’s Adversaries, The sound ideal cheekily exaggerated and its use masterfully. Although Strauss’s impressive series of tone- Hero’s Companion, The Hero in Battle, and deformed. In Arnfried Edler’s themes of varied character constantly poems, to be followed only by the The Hero’s Peaceable Works, The apt formulation: “Paradoxically, the present themselves — there is even Sinfonia Domestica (1903) and An Hero’s Retirement from this World and exaggerated Brahmsianism only draws room for some waltz-like Rosenkavalier Alpine Symphony (1915), the last major Consummation. So, a great deal of hero the work away from its model towards passages — they remain framed by an instrumental works in his oeuvre. at every stage − and the connection the future.” Perhaps Strauss had overarching form. There are islands of Strauss began work on Ein Heldenleben with Beethoven’s great heroic work, underestimated his own modernity… elegiacal peace placed at several points in 1897, started working on the score the Eroica symphony, is very close. within the (at times) rude and rough on August 2, 1898, and the piece was Strauss wrote in typical manner: “Since Because the work is relatively modern tone: for example, at the insistence of complete on December 1 of that year, Beethoven’s Eroica is so unpopular for Strauss, and full of surprises from the the timpani, the piano presents a lyrical although it was given a new conclusion with our conductors, and is therefore very beginning, nothing is as it seems theme — albeit too late. Even the last on December 27. The work received its so seldom performed anymore, I am at first glance. It opens with a four- word in this musical farce, which is so première on 3 March 1899 in Frankfurt. now composing, in order to remedy an urgent need, a great tone-poem, Ein Heldenleben also seems to complete form terms. Here the woodwinds In the end, the hero wins: his main entitled Ein Heldenleben (although the circle, as it were: while the preceding whine, nasalise, scrape and grunt, an theme prevails. This is followed by the without a funeral march, and yet also tone poems (with the exception of Till instrumental representation of nagging, recapitulation, usually the section within in E flat major, and with a great deal Eulenspiegel) had always dissolved small-minded critics: an “aggressive sonata form where the exposition is of horns, which are naturally so suited into utter silence, Strauss decided to anti-music” (Youmans). The second presented again, but varied. In this case to heroism) ...” While Beethoven had rework the ending in this case into a theme group, The Hero’s Companion − how could it be otherwise in a tone reflected in music the social aspects of solemn chord progression of increasing (Strauss’s wife Pauline), is assigned a poem? − Strauss develops the material the hero theme in the Eroica in 1803, dynamic. cantabile theme for solo violin. But this in a completely unexpected direction. Strauss turned to a late-19th-century companion can also be quite a prima “private conflict” (Hansen), as symbol Ein Heldenleben is Strauss’ longest tone donna, prickly and moody, as illustrated The Hero’s Peaceable Works presents, and expression of late-bourgeois poem, set for the largest orchestral by the changeability of the melody. above all, quotations from Strauss’s “resignation” for Ein Heldenleben. apparatus. The structure is relatively The “hero” continues to woo her and, earlier works, interweaving melodies simple, based on sonata form, allowing after some disagreement (it seems this and motifs from Don Juan, Don The century was inexorably coming to straightforward assignation of the is no straightforward relationship!), an Quixote, Macbeth, Death and an end, and presumably Strauss thought titles of the separate sections. But it intimate dialogue between the lovers is Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel and it time for a sort of retrospective, to is by no means a genuine return to reached − ecstatic, and rapturous. Thus Spake Zarathustra into a highly draw up a balance-sheet of his own sonata form itself: Strauss employs elaborate sound carpet for his auditors.