Instrumental music of R. Strauss Grouve

8/3/2019 Instrumental music of R. Strauss Grouve

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7. Instrumental works.

Strauss's early period of composition, roughly from 1870 to the mid-1880s may be divided at the

year 1880. The instrumental works from the 1870s, many of which remain unpublished, are

mostly small-scale: pieces for solo piano, contrapuntal studies, chamber music. These works,

which take us from Strauss's early childhood to his mid-teen years, are remarkably skilful, but

reveal more the influence of his arch-conservative father than any artistic originality. The First

Symphony (1880) was a major step forward and evinces a rapidly increasing interest in composing

orchestral music; a less interesting piece from that year was the String Quartet in A. The two

works stood at the end of Strauss's studies with Meyer, whose approach to counterpoint and form

was rudimentary and straightforward. Nevertheless, Meyer had given Strauss a strong orthodox

foundation, albeit one with which the young composer became increasingly dissatisfied. He did

not produce another symphony for four years; meanwhile he composed two piano works: the op.5

Sonata and theKlavierstcke op.3. Beyond the obvious references to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

in the first movement of op.5, these works, both from 1881, betray a clear homage to the early

Romantic generation, especially Mendelssohn. In the same year Strauss produced his major

success to date, the Serenade op.7. On hearing this work Blow, unimpressed with the piano

works, was finally convinced that the 17-year-old was far more than a mere talent.

Strauss's early works featuring a solo instrument were nearly always written with a friend or

family member in mind: the op.8 Violin Concerto (188082) for Benno Walter, the op.6 Cello

Sonata (1883) for Hans Wilhan, a friend and principal cellist of the Munich court orchestra, the

Horn Concerto op.11, of course, for his father. This last piece occupies a solid position in the horn

repertory and also exhibits a loosening of Meyer's firm formal grip, for, as opposed to what

happens in the Violin Concerto, the three movements proceed without interruption. A year later

Strauss reverted to a formal clarity reminiscent of his First Symphony with the composition of his

Second, though the latter work shows a significant advance in harmonic richness, orchestration

and counterpoint. That year also saw the wonderfully atmospheric Stimmungsbilder as well as

another work for woodwind: the Suite in B, commissioned by Blow.

Around this time began the Brahmsschwrmerei: an obvious fruit is the Piano Quartet in C

minor, strongly influenced by Brahms's piano quartets in C minor and G minor. The end of this

Brahmsian episode, as well as what is usually defined as Strauss's early period, is marked by theBurleske in D minor for piano and orchestra. Written for Blow, who deemed the work

unplayable, it was eventually dedicated to Eugne d'Albert, who gave the first performance in

1886. In this piece we first witness Strauss the fledgling modernist, for it is one of the earliest

pieces to use the historical canon as a source for parody. Fully aware of the Brahms-Wagner

polemic, Strauss delights in burlesquing both Brahms (the D minor and B major piano concertos)

and Wagner (Tristan and Die Walkre) in remarkable juxtapositions. He was developing


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artistically with great rapidity, and confessed to feeling trapped in a steadily escalating antithesis

between poetic content and formal structure.Aus Italien (1886) he described as a first step toward

independence, even though, unlike the tone poems to follow, it is divided into four discrete

movements. The first, Auf der Campagna, is the closest to Liszt in construction; the second, Im

Roms Ruinen, shows the clearest affinity to Brahms; and the third, Am Strande von Sorrent,

represents Strauss's first serious attempt at musical pictorialism. The controversial fourth

movement, Neapolisches Volksleben, was based, according to Strauss, on a Neapolitan folktune

that turned out to be none other than the 1880 popular tune Funiculi, funicula, which

commemorated the construction of the funicular on Vesuvius.

Macbeth (1888), which he described as a completely new path, was not found without detours.

Indeed, the piece went through more revisions than any of his other symphonic works, and these

revisions, concerned primarily with the development and recapitulation, suggest how seriously he

was still struggling with the conflict between narrative content and musical structure. New path or

not, Macbeth failed to find a firm place in the concert repertory, because it lacked the thematiccogency and convincing pacing of musical events so evident in the two subsequent works. And

despite revisions to the orchestration, in an attempt to restrain inner voices and highlight principal

themes, Macbeth still falls short ofDon Juan and Tod und Verklrungin sonic clarity.

By now Strauss was composing with unprecedented speed: Macbeth was completed in January

February 1888, followed by Don Juan only eight months later. But the public first heard Don

Juan in the autumn of 1889; the premire ofMacbeth followed a year later. So it was Don Juan,

not Macbeth, that firmly established Strauss as the brash, young German modernist. In Macbeth

Strauss struggled with the demands of sonata form and the requirements of the story, while inDon

Juan which elegantly merges rondo and sonata principles narrative and structural strategies

came into effortless union. This second tone poem, with its provocative subject matter, dazzling

orchestration, sharply etched themes, novel structure and taut pacing, earned Strauss his

international reputation as a symphonic composer. Here too he found his voice as a tone poet, the

music being flagrantly pictorial, humorous and altogether irreverent. The aesthetics of Wagner and

Liszt may have inspired him to embrace the extra-musical, but he refused to carry their torch for

music as a sacred entity; the libertine Don (and Strauss with him) simply thumbs his nose at the

world.

Cosima Wagner, Strauss admirer and self-proclaimed custodian of her late husband's ideals,

sharply criticized both the subject matter ofDon Juan and its explicit expression. CounsellingStrauss against superficial elements and evocative themes, Cosima urged him to seek eternal

motives that could be perceived at manifold levels and in various manifestations. Strauss's

response was polite: I think I have understood [you] correctly, and I look forward to producing

evidence next time we meet, in the form of my third symphonic work [ Tod und Verklrung]

that I have perhaps already made a significant advance, even in choice of subject. The subject is

indeed more elevated, but it is doubtful whether Cosima's advice affected his artistic views in any


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serious way. The most metaphysical of his tone poems, Tod und Verklrung (18889) is based not

on a literary text but on a narrative of the composer's own conception: a dying artist, obsessed by

an artistic Ideal, is transfigured at death to recognize his Ideal in eternity. A poem by Ritter

published in the score postdates the composition, though the musical theme for the Ideal may have

been inspired by one from Ritter's symphonic waltz Olafs Hochzeitsreigen. In Tod und Verklrung

death is less the issue than transfiguration, a lifelong fascination for Strauss (with its abundant

musical possibilities), one that manifests itself from Rosenkavalier through to Metamorphosen.

The musical subdivisions of Tod und Verklrung are clear, though their relationship to its

modified sonata form is less so. The work has a quiet, syncopated introduction (breathing

irregularly), then an agitated exposition (racked by terrible pain), followed by an episodic

developmental space: dreams of childhood, youthful passions. What follows is the principal theme

of the work, that of the artistic Ideal. The restatement of this lofty melody in the extended coda is

what Strauss termed the point of culmination, and it is indeed one of the most exquisite moments

in all his symphonic works: even his arch-conservative father was moved. Tod und Verklrung

ends the feverish tone-poem activity of the late 1880s, and Strauss was not to compose another

major symphonic work for six years, during which time he was preoccupied with composing his

first opera, Guntram. Its failure, after a string of successes, taught him much. Consciously or not,

he realized the need to explore further the problem of narrative in a purely symphonic medium.

Most of the tone poems after this six-year hiatus are significantly longer (Ein Heldenleben is

nearly three times the length of Don Juan), and the size of the orchestra increases as well (fig.7),

as does the composer's pleasure in graphic depiction. But Strauss had not entirely got opera out of

his system. Shortly after the Guntram premire he decided to compose a one-act opera Till

Eulenspiegel bei den Schildbrgern, though he never got beyond an incomplete text draft. Why he

scrapped the opera for a tone poem is not clear, but judging from his programme notes, the

symphonic work is based on a different scenario: Once upon a time there was a knavish fool

named Till Eulenspiegel. He was a wicked goblin up to new tricks. Till rides on horseback

through the market, mocks religion (disguised as a cleric), flirts with women, engages in academic

double talk with his philistine audience, and by the end finds himself on the scaffold, soon to be

hanged. Strauss did not call Till a tone poem but rather a Rondeau Form for Large Orchestra.

Richard Specht suggested this might well have been the first prank, given that the only connection

with the old French forme fixe is in the spelling. Strauss later described the structure as being an

expansion of rondo form through poetic content, and cited Beethoven's Eighth Symphony as his

model. Given the libertine qualities of young Till, as well as the episodic nature of the work, arondo would seem quite appropriate. But, as in Don Juan, the form is hardly conventional: the

sense of rondo is achieved mostly by the return of Till's two themes to articulate his various

adventures. Completed in May 1895, the compact Till Eulenspiegel was introduced with great

success six months later and remains Strauss's most often performed orchestral piece. That he had

learnt much about orchestral detail and nuance during the six years since Tod und Verklrung is


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evinced by his brilliant use of the ratchet when Till rides through the market, or by the piercing D

clarinet when he whistles in the face of death.

Strauss was so taken by the subject matter that he considered, yet again, composing a Till opera,

but he ultimately turned his attention to Also sprach Zarathustra, the first concrete manifestation of

his rejection of Schopenhauerian metaphysics. His interest in Nietzsche had blossomed as early as

the end of the Guntram project, when the philosopher had helped affirm his agnosticism as well as

his lifelong belief in the individual's power to change the world around him, controlling his

destiny without promise of a hereafter. Strauss originally subtitled the work symphonic optimism

in fin-de-sicle form, dedicated to the 20th century. Later he substituted freely after Nietzsche, a

description that aptly suggests his liberal treatment of the book's prologue and eight of its 80

subsections: Of the Backworldsmen, Of Great Yearning, Of Joys and Passions, Funeral

Song, Of Science, The Convalescent, The Dance Song and The Night Wanderer's Song. If

there is some paratextual thread connecting these, Strauss's letters and sketches offer few, if any,

clues. Quite probably he chose those sections that appealed most to his musical imagination; manyof them refer to song or dance. However, one idea unifies the work and plays a musical-structural

role, that of conflict between nature (C major) and humanity (B major). The similar preoccupation

in Mahler is hardly coincidental, for Mahler set Zarathustra's Drunken Song of Midnight in his

Third Symphony in the same year, and was to revisit this conflict between finite humanity and

infinite nature at greater length in Das Lied von der Erde (19089). But unlike Mahler, Strauss

depicts a humanity not in search of eternity, but rather struggling to transcend religious

superstition. Also sprach Zarathustra was first performed, to great acclaim, in 1896; by now a

Strauss premire had become an international event.

Though the earliest idea forDon Quixote occurred to Strauss within months of the Zarathustra

premire, he did not begin composing the new work in earnest until the spring of the following

year. At the time he was also considering another tone poem, ultimately named Ein Heldenleben,

for which Don Quixote would serve as a comic reverse side of the coin. It makes a return to the

satirical world ofTill Eulenspiegel and, once again, the subtitle suggests not so much genre as

form or procedure: fantastic variations on a theme of knightly character for large orchestra. The

question of genre remains elusive, for the work which features both cello and viola in solo roles

is a conglomeration of tone poem, theme and variations, and concerto. Strauss had already

written a work for cello and orchestra, the Romanze of 1883, but a more obvious earlier precedent

was Berlioz's Harold en Italie. Don Quixote features an introduction, ten variations and a coda,offering, respectively, a portrait of the anti-hero and his faithful Sancho Panza, their ten

misadventures and the death of the Don. Once again Strauss chose selections from a major literary

work, and, in the tradition ofDon Juan and Till Eulenspiegel,Don Quixoteproceeds episodically,

though these episodes are now more self-contained: as each chapter unfolds, so does a new

variation. Moreover, this variation form incorporates nuances of the rondo principle found in the

two preceding works. Indeed, what is varied is not so much themes as musical contexts, to make a


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musical analogy of the characters in their different incidents. The work had its first performance in

March 1898. The reviews were mixed, more so than those of the other recent tone poems. Strauss

had now reached a new level in his ability to create concrete sonic images through novel

instrumental combinations and juxtapositions: bleating winds and brass to represent sheep, the

wind machine for the aerial journey, snap pizzicatos to evoke the water-logged adventurers who

have just fallen out of their enchanted boat. Some critics accused Strauss of competing with

Cervantes rather than interpreting him; others recognized an increasing aesthetic conflict in his

music between technical industry and loftier inspiration, between Strauss the artisan and Strauss

the artist. Don Quixote could have reawakened Cosima Wagner's original misgivings about Don

Juan.

Strauss always consideredDon Quixote andEin Heldenleben as paired works, and suggested they

be performed together; the first musical ideas forHeldenleben emerged while he was working on

Quixote. This earlyHeldenleben sketch relates to the end of the piece and is labelled: longing for

peace after the struggle with the world, refuge in solitude: the Idyll. The parallel with Quixote isobvious. Cervantes offered Strauss the necessary material with which to explore the anti-hero, but

for his hero Strauss looked to himself: his love for Pauline, his inner and outer struggles. The six

sections of the work the hero, his adversaries, his life's companion, his deeds of war, his works

of peace, his withdrawal from the world do not go beyond this fundamental idea. Some

commentators have seen the work as comprising six continuous sections, but the general contours

of sonata form seem more appropriate to Strauss's plan of expository material (hero, adversaries,

beloved), developmental space (struggle) and recapitulation (rejecting war, seeking solace in

domestic love).

Ein Heldenleben remains one of Strauss's most controversial works, mainly because its surface

elements have been overemphasized. Various critics see the work as a flagrant instance of

Strauss's artistic egotism, but a deeper interpretation reveals the issue of autobiography to be far

more complex. Ein Heldenleben treats two important subjects familiar from earlier works: the

Nietzschean struggle between the individual and his outer and inner worlds, and the profundity of

domestic love. Essential to this latter preoccupation was his wife Pauline, for the almost dizzying

recollection of themes from previous tone poems, opera and lieder concerns mostly love themes

related to her as the hero's partner. This effect of culmination has a broader context as well, for

Ein Heldenleben marks the end of Strauss's 19th-century tone poems and reflects a composer at

the height of his creative powers. The premire took place in March 1899.

At the threshold of a new century, Strauss had accepted a new post of unprecedented stature in

Berlin, as conductor of the Hofoper. More important than the career change, he decided to

dedicate himself to composing opera, though he made at least seven later endeavours in the

symphonic realm, five of which never saw completion. In 1899 he briefly toyed with the idea of a

tone poem to be called Frhling; early the next year he sketched a scenario for a symphonic


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Knstlertragdie. Shortly after completing Salome he planned Vier Frauengestalten der National

Gallery, the intended subjects being Veronese's Sleeping Girl, Hogarth's The Shrimp Girl,

Reynolds'sHeads of Angels and Romney's portrait of Lady Hamilton. During the mid-1920s came

a mooted Trigon: Sinfonia zu drei Themen. The fifth of these unrealized projects, Die Donau

(19412), progressed the furthest: over 400 bars of short score survive. The two major symphonic

works that were seen to completion, the Symphonia domestica (19023) and Eine Alpensinfonie

(191115), have been somewhat overshadowed by the operas. And though neither is designated as

tone poem in either title or subtitle, both draw on the tone poems' subject matter.

The Symphonia domestica inspired at first even more controversy than Ein Heldenleben: the

composer's self-stylization as hero was distasteful enough, but to cast into the symphonic medium

the quotidian world of family life was worse still. A principal focus ofHeldenleben, however, was

domestic love, which makes the autobiographical gesture of Symphonia domestica a logical

extension. Originally titled Mein Heim: ein sinfonisches Selbst- und Familienportrt, the work

was always referred to by Strauss as a symphony or symphonic poem, and there are indeed foursections that correspond loosely to symphonic movements: introduction (presentation of major

characters and their themes), scherzando (child at play, his parents' happiness), cradle song and

Adagio (child is put to bed, thereafter a parental love scene), and finale in the form of a double

fugue (a new day begins with quarrelling and happy reconciliation).

Strauss insisted that no programme be published in connection with the first performance and on

various occasions tried to distance himself from the work's detailed programmatic ideas, the most

famous instance being a letter to Romain Rolland in which he declared that the programme is

nothing but a pretext for the purely musical expression and development of my emotions, and not

a simple his hero Strauss looked to himself: his love for Pauline, his inner and outer struggles. The

six sections of the work the hero, his adversaries, his life's companion, his deeds of war, his

works of peace, his withdrawal from the world do not go beyond this fundamental idea. Some

commentators have seen the work as comprising six continuous sections, but the general contours

of sonata form seem more appropriate to Strauss's plan of expository material (hero, adversaries,

beloved), developmental space (struggle) and recapitulation (rejecting war, seeking solace in

domestic love).

Ein Heldenleben remains one of Strauss's most controversial works, mainly because its surface

elements have been overemphasized. Various critics see the work as a flagrant instance of

Strauss's artistic egotism, but a deeper interpretation reveals the issue of autobiography to be far

more complex. Ein Heldenleben treats two important subjects familiar from earlier works: the

Nietzschean struggle between the individual and his outer and inner worlds, and the profundity of

domestic love. Essential to this latter preoccupation was his wife Pauline, for the almost dizzying

recollection of themes from previous tone poems, opera and lieder concerns mostly love themes

related to her as the hero's partner. This effect of culmination has a broader context as well, for


7/8

Ein Heldenleben marks the end of Strauss's 19th-century tone poems and reflects a composer at

the height of his creative powers. The premire took place in March 1899.

At the threshold of a new century, Strauss had accepted a new post of unprecedented stature in

Berlin, as conductor of the Hofoper. More important than the career change, he decided to

dedicate himself to composing opera, though he made at least seven later endeavours in the

symphonic realm, five of which never saw completion. In 1899 he briefly toyed with the idea of a

tone poem to be called Frhling; early the next year he sketched a scenario for a symphonic

Knstlertragdie. Shortly after completing Salome he planned Vier Frauengestalten der National

Gallery, the intended subjects being Veronese's Sleeping Girl, Hogarth's The Shrimp Girl,

Reynolds'sHeads of Angels and Romney's portrait of Lady Hamilton. During the mid-1920s came

a mooted Trigon: Sinfonia zu drei Themen. The fifth of these unrealized projects, Die Donau

(19412), progressed the furthest: over 400 bars of short score survive. The two major symphonic

works that were seen to completion, the Symphonia domestica (19023) and Eine Alpensinfonie

(191115), have been somewhat overshadowed by the operas. And though neither is designated astone poem in either title or subtitle, both draw on the tone poems' subject matter.

The Symphonia domestica inspired at first even more controversy than Ein Heldenleben: the

composer's self-stylization as hero was distasteful enough, but to cast into the symphonic medium

the quotidian world of family life was worse still. A principal focus ofHeldenleben, however, was

domestic love, which makes the autobiographical gesture of Symphonia domestica a logical

extension. Originally titled Mein Heim: ein sinfonisches Selbst- und Familienportrt, the work

was always referred to by Strauss as a symphony or symphonic poem, and there are indeed four

sections that correspond loosely to symphonic movements: introduction (presentation of major

characters and their themes), scherzando (child at play, his parents' happiness), cradle song and

Adagio (child is put to bed, thereafter a parental love scene), and finale in the form of a double

fugue (a new day begins with quarrelling and happy reconciliation).

Strauss insisted that no programme be published in connection with the first performance and on

various occasions tried to distance himself from the work's detailed programmatic ideas, the most

famous instance being a letter to Romain Rolland in which he declared that the programme is

nothing but a pretext for the purely musical expression and development of my emotions, and not

a simple begun around the turn of the century, for after Salome Strauss had lost interest in

composing purely orchestral music. Beyond ballets, incidental music and some occasional works,

such as the various fanfares, Festliches Prludium (1913) and Japanische Festmusik(1940), he

composed very little instrumental music until the 1940s. In 1924 he was commissioned to write a

concertante piece by the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm during the war.

Shortly before he began work, Strauss's son suffered a severe illness, and the Parergon zur

Symphonia domestica (1925) was dedicated to his recovery; it is based on Franz's theme from the

Symphonia domestica. Of all the composers Wittgenstein commissioned, Strauss was the only one


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asked to write a second piece, and two years later he produced the Panathenenzug. The subtitle,

Symphonic Etude in the Form of a Passacaglia, refers to the repeated bass pattern above which

are 18 continuous variations, framed by an introduction and finale. The neglect of both works,

which explore a vast array of colours in both piano and orchestra, is partly due to the difficult

technical challenges for the soloist.

In 1938 Strauss was asked to compose music for a documentary film on Munich, and though both

music and film were completed the following year, the Nazi regime forbade the film's release. The

musical material for the film score had been drawn from Feuersnot, a fitting idea since that opera

had been set in Munich of old. Despite the ban, Strauss went ahead and published the music under

the title Mnchen: ein Gelegenheitswalzer(1939); after Munich was bombed in the war the work

was expanded with a new subtitle, ein Gedchtniswalzer (1945). By now Strauss had almost

stopped composing, claiming that afterCapriccio his career had come to a close; what followed

were mere wrist exercises. Yet among these exercises are some of his finest instrumental

compositions, returning to the classic genres of his youth. His two late woodwind pieces, subtitled

From the Workshop of an Invalid (1943) and The Happy Workshop (19445), exemplifyopposing forces of resignation and hope, a dichotomy interwoven in so many works composed

around the end of his life. The Second Horn Concerto (1942) and Oboe Concerto (1945) are very

much part of the modern repertory, and the delightful Duett-Concertino (1947) for solo clarinet

and bassoon with string orchestra has increased in popularity. But the most profound instrumental

work from this late period is Metamorphosen (1945), subtitled a study for 23 strings. There has

been confusion regarding the genesis of this dark, brooding work, said by some to have been

inspired by the destruction of Munich. Recent research has convincingly shown that the source

was Goethe, more specifically his poem Niemand wird sich selber kennen. Rather than mourning

the destruction of an opera house, Metamorphosen seeks to probe the cause of war itself, which

stems from humanity's bestial nature. In short, Strauss inverts classic metamorphosis (wherethrough self-knowledge the human subject becomes divine), realizing instead humanity's

dangerous potential to indulge the basest animal instincts. In this context, the Beethoven Eroica

quotation towards the end is painfully ironic. It has even been referred to (by Alan Jefferson) as

possibly the saddest piece of music ever written.

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Instrumental music of R. Strauss Grouve