Richard Strauss

Life and creation

Years of youth and the " conversion" with the ideas of Wagner and Liszt

Richard Strauss is the son of a first horn player of the Royal Orchestra of Munich, Franz Strauss, which was savagely preserving and anti-Wagnerian. Richard, child prodigy, expressing very precociously great musical talents, are trained at the school brahmsienne, and discover the music by the study of works of traditional German as well as the first romantic ones, such Schumann and Mendelssohn.

The German music then knows an esthetic period of conflict between holding of the pure music, among which account Brahms, and holding them of the music with program, whose leader is Franz Liszt. This conflict will be incarnated in particular by the controversy opposing Richard Wagner, follower of total art (" Gesamtkunstwerk "), and the critic Viennese Edouard Hanslick, very influential in all second half of the 19th century. The father of Richard Strauss chooses to preserve his son of the Wagnerian influence. Richard will thus discover truly the modernity and the expressive power of works of Liszt and Wagner, only once his career of leader started. He is indeed initiated with the music with program starting from 1883, when he has to direct the orchestra of Meiningen, in which he binds friendship with the first violin Alexander Ritter, familiar of the circles lisztiens.

Maturity: 1887-1929

Poems: control orchestra and of its expressive resources

The symphonic poems of Richard Strauss rest on the adaptation of the traditional musical forms (sonata form, rondo-sonata, topic and variation) to a narrative argument. The orchestra of Richard Strauss takes account of the evolution of the art of the instrumentation at the XIXe century, and especially of alloys of stamp tested by Hector Berlioz (whose Strauss publishes an amendment of the Treaty of the Orchestration in 1909), Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. It is interesting to note that in its symphonic poems, Strauss keeps an anchoring in the tradition, while adopting the esthetic ideals of the young generation. As from this time, the success of Don Juan (1887-1888), Macbeth (1886-87-91), Died and transfiguration (1889), Till Mischievous the (1894-95), Ainsi spoke Zarathoustra (according to Nietzsche - 1896), Don Quichotte (1897), a Life of Hero (1898), the Sinfonia Domestica (1903), an Alpine symphony (1911-1915), was never contradicted. Strauss was put in scene in two of its works: A Life of Hero and Sinfonia Domestica. However, as noticed it many exégètes, among which the writer Romain Roland, who was a large friend of Richard Strauss, each one of his symphonic poems or symphonies with program (Sinfonia Domestica and an Alpine Symphony) can be appreciated for his sound beauty and his expressive qualities without the program being read as a preliminary.

First operas

Richard Strauss Marie in 1894 with a Soprano, Pauline de Ahna, which can explain its predilection for this register in its future vocal compositions.

After two rather unfruitful attempts in the field of the opera with Guntram (1892-93) and Feuersnot (1901), Strauss is a brilliant success on the lyric scene thanks to Salome (1904-1905), drama in an act according to the part of Oscar Wilde. Its style does not give up orientalism, an exacerbated sensuality and the expression of feelings of an extreme violence by a language which is sometimes at the limits of atonality.

Meet with Hugo von Hofmannsthal

The meeting with the writer, poet and Austrian playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) will mark a decisive turn in the career of the type-setter. Their correspondence is followed and lighting that Strauss had with his/her collaborators concerning the genesis of its works. The operas written on a booklet of Hofmannsthal are the following: Elektra (1906-1908), the Knight with the pink (1909-1910), which as Salome entered to the repertory of many opera houses throughout the world, ARIANE in Naxos (1912-1916), the Woman without shade (1914-1917), Helene of Egypt (1927) and Arabella (1932), whose Hofmannsthal could not attend creation. From a stylistic point of view, the Knight with the pink , whose action is in second half of the XVIIIe century, joins again with the roccoco and the lightness of the operetta Viennese. ARIANE in Naxos returns to the baroques categories of the opera buffa , of the opera seriated , with the distinction between aria and recitativo secco , while integrating spoken interludes and by adopting a more reduced orchestral manpower. The infinite melody inherited Wagner is abandoned with the profit of a return to the division of the opera in a succession of scenes, the whole in agreement with an action located at the 18th century and with the will of evolution of the opera house affirmed by Strauss and Hofmannsthal. The reading of the correspondence between the type-setter and his librettist reveals us that it is the second who convinced the first to be gradually detached from the Wagnerian influence and to renew his perception of the history of arts, to replace there a linear design by a vision where the succession of the events is compared with a spiral (the “eternal return”).

It is without the assistance of Hofmannsthal that Strauss will compose Intermezzo (1922-1923), middle-class comedy in two acts, left halfway conversation in music between the opera, the Singspiel , opera-puffs out it, the operetta, reporting a marital crisis which has occurred between a certain musician of the name Storch and his wife Christine, an housewife equipped with a very marked nature. Storch is not other than Richard Strauss, while behind Christine hiding place itself Pauline de Ahna, his wife, who ends up giving up her career of singer to deal with her household.

Richard Strauss also composes of many Lieder (melodies) with orchestra (written initially for Piano). The tessiture is then almost always for soprano voice.

Dark years (1929-1940): Strauss and Nazis

After the death of Hofmannsthal, Strauss knows what one regards still today as a breakdown of inspiration, due without any doubt to a crisis not only artistic, but also personal, related to died of his/her best collaborator like on the political circumstances. In 1933, Strauss agrees to provide the president's function of the Reichsmusikkammer of Music of Reich. It will be justified while claiming to want to preserve the German music of influences which it considers harmful, but also political regime whose it considers sometimes debatable the choices as regards artistic policy.

Nevertheless, during this period, it continues to collaborate with the Austrian writer of origin Jew Stefan Zweig (1881-1942): the quiet Woman is thus created on a booklet of this last in 1935. The name of Stefan Zweig disappears from the poster three days before the first representation in Dresden, but Strauss succeeds in making it there restore. Strauss seems not to include/understand why collaboration should be stopped because of ethnic origin of Zweig. The type-setter is constrained to resign of his president's functions of Reichsmusikkammer, in 1935, when one of its letters with Zweig is seized by the Gestapo, in which it asks his librettist to cease granting as much importance to his judeity and recalls him that in art, there exist only two categories of people: those which have talent and those which do not have any. “did Mozart compose into Aryan? ”, he asks. Strauss is resigned: his/her daughter-in-law, Alice, are Jewish, and its grandchildren are it consequently too. Moreover, the mode knows pertinently that to return to the international opinion an acceptable image, it is necessary to preserve inside the borders the rare artistic personalities of great fame which did not leave in exile. Unfortunately, Strauss is compromised with the Nazism by some too official handshakes - a famous photograph shows it greeting very cordially Joseph Goebbels -, of made up works for events celebrated in large pump by the mode: an Olympic Anthem for the Plays of Berlin of 1936, a Music of Japanese Festival accompanying one by the festivities sealing the bringing together enters the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire. Its operas will be represented and created until 1942: Friedenstag (Day of Peace) in 1936, Daphne in 1937, Love of Danaé in 1940, all three on a booklet of Joseph Gregor, Capriccio in 1942.

Years of war (1940-1945)

Capriccio

Years 1940 were qualified rightly “Indian summer” by Norman Del Mar, author of a remarkable study on the life and the work of Richard Strauss. With Capriccio , in 1941, Strauss very crowns its lyric work by an opera of high-quality as well musical as dramaturgic.

The argument - writing by the leader Clemens Krauss - still returns at the XVIIIe century, precisely in the neighborhoods of the year 1775, and puts in scene a French countess of the name of Madeleine, which one is on the point of celebrating the birthday. With this intention, the Rock, theater director, have two artists, Olivier, the poet, Fleming, the type-setter. Between the two, the heart of Madeleine hesitates. The booklet is not limited to a masquerade in love. Which will be the kind of the spectacle given for the birthday of the Countess? A opera seriated , with Italian singers specialized in the beautiful canto , like would like it the Rock? Would a spectacle making the good share with poetry and emphasizing the theatrical play Miss Clairon, as like it the Count, brother of Madeleine? “ PRIMA the musica - doppo word! ”, clamp one on a side. “ PRIMA word - doppo the musica! ”, counterpart the other part. The debate is illustrated by a declamation of sonnet per Olivier, an improvisation with the Fleming harpsichord, a danced interlude, a duet of the Italian singers. The Count puts an end to the debate by suggesting that are reported in an opera the adventures of the day. The proposal is accepted. It is late, the guests take leave. A spectacle is only illusion, on the scene reigns the transitory one and the dream is due only to few things. Mr. Taupe, the blower, which had fallen asleep and that one forgot, recalls it to the Majordomo, who proposes to make it accompany back in Paris. The countess remained with the castle. An appointment was taken with Olivier, the following day at eleven hours, with the library. The Majordomo reminds to him that Fleming will await it the same place and same hour. What to make? Which of both to choose? Does one have to choose besides between poetry and the music? The Countess puts herself at the toothing-stone and is accompanied by singing the sonnet by Olivier. Music and poetry are based one in another. Madeleine is stopped in her daydream by the Majordomo, who invites it to pass to table.

Capriccio mixes as of the sextet with cords which opens the opera and the first discussions between Olivier and Fleming, the stylization of musical styles belonging to the XVIIIe century and the best dramatic lucky finds in term of relation between the orchestra and the voices, and with reflection on the musical form within the framework with the opera. Especially, the process of setting in abyme is been useful by a highly original technique of “conversation in music” which concerns as much the theater as of the song, where the text must be déclamé, according to the will of the type-setter, at the same speed that if he were spoken.

Return to the sources

The last years of the war are for Strauss one period of introspection, even of return to the sources. It reads Goethe and returns to the traditional inspiration, with small orchestral manpower, the traditional forms. In the '' Second Concerto for Horn '' (1942 - the first, written for his/her father, went back to 1883), both Sonatines for 16 wind instruments (1943-45), the '' Concerto for oboe and small orchestra '' born from its meeting with a American officer of the CIA (1946), the literary inspiration disappears, the orchestral paste is purified, as it was the case already in the sextet of opening of Capriccio , the accent is put on the beauty of the melody, the fluidity of the interlacings of the polyphony, like on formal clearness. Sometimes one thinks of Mozart and Haydn that Strauss does not give up quoting expressly in its correspondence, with the turning of an unspecified note, or at the head of a partition. The Deuxième sonatine is dedicated “to the immortal spirit of divine the Mozart”.

Post-war period and the be Indian (1946-1949)

Metamorphoses

In January 1946 is created with Zurich a work ordered by Paul Sacher bearing the name of “Métamorphoses”. It is, according to the terms of type-setter, about a “study for 23 cords soloists” which are connected with a vast symphonic movement for 10 violins, 5 violas, 5 violoncellos and 3 double basses. Work reveals a perfect control of the resources of the Polyphonie, work motivic and musical Forme. A breath epic of a poignant force traverses the part until its conclusion on a resigned tone where one of the main themes is pointed out while in the serious parts a reminiscence of the topic of the funeral march of the Heroic Symphony of Beethoven resounds. The manuscript autograph is marked “ In Memoriam! ” on this last page which still represents, for many listeners, a good-bye tearing in a world disappearing under the debris left by the years from war and twelve years from dictatorship and reign from cruelty.

The " question"

The shortly after the war, the type-setter understands that it arrives at the end of an artistically opened out life, but it is also exhausted by the political events, very deeply affected by the bombardment of the high places of the German culture, the destruction of its native house like more prestigious opera houses, and its judgment within the framework of the lawsuits of Dénazification. Interdict to leave the territory by the Nazis, it is it from now on, for some time, by the American occupant. Its music is sometimes regarded as suspicieuse, ideologically doubtful. Although one finds at Strauss no trace of some allegiance that it is with the ideology main road-Socialist, few evidence of anti-semitism, although it did not express any particular eagerness for certain protocols such safety hitlérien, it are recognized guilty to have taken an active part in the cultural life of its country during the darkest years of its history. Except stays repeated in Switzerland during winters 45 to 48, Strauss will hardly move away before 1947, year when on the invitation of Sir Thomas Beecham, he undertakes a voyage to London.

Epilog

The creative life of Richard Strauss is completed by a cycle of Lied er with Orchestre with the autumnal colors, the “last four Lieder” (1948), out of three poems of Hermann Hesse and a poem of Eichendorff. The type-setter dies out on September 8th, 1949. Pauline Strauss-In Ahna survived only six months her husband, whose loss was so painful for him that she asked Georg Solti after the concert that this one directed at the time of the funeral, where one gave the final trio of the Chevalier to the pink , why a man which had written such a music was one day to die.

Principal works

Symphonic poems

Macbeth (1888/90)
Don Juan (1889)
Dead and transfiguration (1891)
Till Mischievous the (1895)
Ainsi spoke Zarathoustra (Also sprach Zarathustra) (1896)
Don Quichotte: Fantastic variations on a chivalrous topic (1898)
a life of hero ( Ein Heldenleben ) (1899)
Sinfonia Domestica (1904)
an Alpine symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie) (1915)

Other orchestral works

Festmarsch , COp 1 (1876)
Symphony in minor D (1880)
Serenade for wind instruments (1881)
Concerto for violin COp 8 (1882)
Symphony in minor F COp 12 (1884)
Italian Aus COp 16 (1886)
Burlesque (Burleske) for piano and orchestra in minor D (1886-1890),
the Middle-class man gentleman , continuation for orchestra (1917),
Festive prelude COp 61 for orchestra and organ (1919)
Film music for the Knight to the pink (1925)
Japanese festive Music (1940)
Divertimento (1942)
Two concertos for horn (1883 & 1943)
Sonatine in major E flat for 16 wind instruments (1944)
Concerto for oboe in D (1945)
Metamorphoses for 23 cords (1945)
Double concertino for clarinet and bassoon, with string orchestra and grip (1947)

Ballet music

the Legend of Joseph (Josephslegende) (1914)
Whipped cream (Schlagobers) (1924)

Opera

Guntram (1894)
Fires of Midsummer's Day (Feuersnot) (1901)
Salome (1905)
Elektra (1909)
the Knight with the pink (Der Rosenkavalier) (1911)
ARIANE in Naxos (Ariadne auf Naxos) (first version 1912, second version with Prolog 1916)
the Woman without shade (Die Frau ohne Schatten) (1919)
Intermezzo (1924)
Helene the Egyptian woman (Die ägyptische Helena) (1933)
Arabella (1933)
the quiet Woman (Die schweigsame Frau) (1935)
Day of peace (Friedenstag) (1938)
Daphne (1938)
love of Danaé (Die Liebe der Danae (1940; general repetition in 1944; official creation in 1952)
Capriccio (1942)

Lieder

More than two hundreds Lieder, of which about thirty with orchestral accompaniment.
the last four Lieder ( Vier letzte Lieder ) for soprano and orchestra (1948)

Choruses has cappella

the Evening (Der Abend)
With the tree Daphne (Year den Baum Daphne)
Motets German (Deutsche Motette)
the Goddess in the toilets (Die Göttin im Putzzimmer)
Choruses of men (Männerchöre)

Chamber music and works for piano

String quartet , COp 2 (1880)
Sonata for piano and violoncello , COp 6 (1882)
Quartet with piano , COp 13 (1884)
Sonata for piano and violin , COp 18 (1887)
5 Stücke for piano, COp 3 (1881)
Sonata for piano , COp 5 (1881)
Stimmungsbilder for piano, COp 5 (1882)

Quotations

“ the symphony Jupiter of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the most beautiful work which I listened to ”
“ I do not see why I would not write a symphony on myself. I am as interesting as Napoleon or Alexandre Large the ”
“ In the music, there are many insane which are it only in their imagination, and me, I admire only insane authentic the ”

External bonds

the institute Richard Strauss de Garmisch: http://www.richard-strauss-institut.de/
a site in construction: http://www.richard-strauss.com/
the family site, including an exhaustive repertory of works and a visit of the villa of Garmisch - to see absolutely: http://www.richardstrauss.at/
Of the councils discographics, in English: http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/straussr.html
Note in French: biography, discography, iconography: http://www.musicologie.org/Biographies/s/strauss_richard.html

Works in French language

Michael Kennedy, Richard Strauss , transl. of English, Paris, Editions Beech. Biography concealing of the errors and bias. One preferred Bryan Gilliam to him, The life off Richard Strauss , Cambridge University Press, 1999, if English is read.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Richard Strauss, Correspondence , Paris, editions Beech.
Considerations and memories ( Betrachtungen und Erinnerungen ).
Correspondence with Stefan Zweig.
Correspondence with Gustav Mahler.
Correspondence with Romain Roland.

Two biographies only of French authors, already extremely old but honest: Dominique Jameux and Antonie Goléa.

Stefan Zweig, the world of yesterday Welt von gestern . Account of a life which began in a world which does not exist any more at the time when Zweig writes the work. Some paragraphs reconsider the polemic which the creation of the quiet Woman in 1935 caused.
Klaus Mann, the turning Wendepunkt . Account of a life, reflections on the origins and the course of the history, since the ancestors of Lübeck until the years of war. Klaus Mann returns visit to Richard Strauss a few months before the death of the type-setter while being made pass for an American journalist. The writer is literally shocked by self-centredness, the naivety and the political absence of conscience of the old man and his family.

Random links: