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diff --git a/old/50227.txt b/old/50227.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 791d372..0000000 --- a/old/50227.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1998 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Richard Strauss, by Herbert F. Peyser - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Richard Strauss - Herbert F. Peyser - -Author: Herbert F. Peyser - -Release Date: October 15, 2015 [EBook #50227] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RICHARD STRAUSS *** - - - - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - Richard Strauss - - - HERBERT F. PEYSER - - [Illustration: Logo] - - Written for and dedicated to - the - RADIO MEMBERS - of - THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY - of NEW YORK - - Copyright 1952 - THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY - of NEW YORK - 113 West 57th Street - New York 19, N. Y. - - [Illustration: Richard Strauss at the age of 39] - - - - - FOREWORD - - -The writer of a thumb-nail biography of Richard Strauss finds himself -confronted with a troublesome assignment. Strauss lived well beyond the -scriptural age allotted the average man. He would have been 86 had he -reached his next birthday. There was nothing romantic or sensational -about his passing, for he died of a complication of the illnesses of old -age. There was not much truly spectacular about the course of his life, -which was most happily free from the material troubles which bedeviled -the existence of so many great masters; and he was not called upon to -starve or to struggle to achieve the material rewards of his gifts. He -had not to pass through the conflicts which embittered the lives of -Wagner or Berlioz, and he was never compelled to suffer like Mozart or -Schubert. There is no record of his ever humiliating himself or -performing degrading chores for publishers in return for a wretched -pittance. He had wealth enough without compromising his art to keep the -pot boiling--and for this one can only feel devoutly thankful. What if -he was taxed with sensationalism? How many of the masters of music has -not had at one time or another to endure this reproach? If "Salome" and -"Elektra", "Ein Heldenleben" and "Till Eulenspiegel" were in their day -scandalously "sensational" did not the whirligig of time reveal them as -incontestable products of genius, irrespective of inequalities and -flaws? However Richard Strauss compares in the last analysis with this -or that master he contributed to the language of music idioms, -procedures and technical accomplishments typical of the confused years -and conflicting ideals out of which they were born. His works are most -decidedly of an age, whether or not they are for all time! In a way he -was almost as fortunate as Mendelssohn. Need anyone begrudge him this? - - H. F. P. - - - - - RICHARD STRAUSS - - - _By_ - HERBERT F. PEYSER - -The late spring of 1864 brought two events which, though seemingly -unrelated, actually had a kind of mystic kinship and were to stir the -surfaces of music. Early in May of that year Richard Wagner was summoned -to Munich to become the friend and protege of the young Bavarian -sovereign, Ludwig II, whose real mission on earth was to save the -composer for the world. Hardly more than a month later there was born in -the same city a boy likewise named Richard who was destined in the -fullness of time to become in a sense an heir and continuator of the -older master, though by no means a vain copy of his artistic and -spiritual lineaments. And long before the span of his days reached its -end he had taken an undisputed place in history as a seminal force in -music, for all the disagreements and conflicts his art was to engender -through a large part of his more than four-score years. - -Richard Strauss first saw the light on June 11, 1864, in a house on the -Altheimer Eck, Munich, at the center of the town and a stone's throw -from the twin steeples of the Frauenkirche. The edifice in which the -future composer of _Salome_, _Elektra_ and _Der Rosenkavalier_ was born -forms part of a complex of buildings in which a number of larger and -smaller beer halls and restaurants, separated by cobbled courtyards, -house the brewery of Georg Pschorr, senior, whose son, Georg Pschorr, -junior, enlarged the establishment. Furthermore, he improved the quality -of its products till Pschorrbrau beer became, it seemed to many -(including the writer of these pages) the most incomparable refreshment -this side of heaven, despite the close proximity of the Hofbrauhaus, the -Loewenbrau, the Augustiner Brau and the unnumbered other Munich breweries -and affiliated Bierstuben. At this point the writer ought, logically, to -confess that he bases his present recollections on what he remembers -from his wanderings in the Bavarian capital prior to the Second World -War, since which time changes without number may well have changed the -picture. But one thing is reasonably certain--if the old house at -Altheimer Eck (Number 2) still stands it continues to have affixed to -its wall the decorative inscription: "Am 11 Juni 1864 wurde hier Richard -Strauss geboren." ("On June 11, 1864, Richard Strauss was born here.") - - * * * - -The Pschorrs apart from being excellent brewers were excellent -musicians. One of the four daughters, Josephine, later Richard's mother, -a fairly accomplished pianist, taught her son piano in his fifth year. A -noted harpist, August Tombo, continued the lessons and by the time the -boy was seven he was administered violin instruction. Franz Strauss, -Richard's father, was an individual of a fibre as tough as Josephine -Pschorr, who became his wife, was mild-mannered and sensitive. But he -was an amazingly fine horn player, for the sake of whose virtuosity and -musicianship greater men than he put up with his ill manners and -incredible tantrums. A venomous reactionary, his particular detestation -was Wagner, against whom he never hesitated to exhibit the meanest -traits of which he was capable. Even when the author of _Tristan_ -expressed himself as overjoyed with the sound of the orchestra at a -first rehearsal of his work in the little Residenz Theatre Franz Strauss -retorted: "That's not true! It sounded like an old tin kettle!" He -pronounced Wagner's horn parts "unplayable" so that Wagner had to call -upon Hans Richter to try out for him some passages in _Die -Meistersinger_ in order to demonstrate that they were anything but -"impossible". With the elder Strauss Hans von Buelow was repeatedly at -loggerheads. And when he once attempted to thank Buelow for some favor -the latter had shown young Richard Strauss Buelow exploded with the -words: "You have no right to thank me! I did your son a favor not on -your account but only because I consider his talent deserves it!" To the -end of his days Franz Strauss remained a cantankerous individual. - - [Illustration: Birthplace of Richard Strauss in Munich] - -Young Richard may not have exhibited the precocity of a Mozart or a -Mendelssohn but there could be no doubt that musical impulses stirred in -the child. He piled up a considerable quantity of juvenilia, beginning -as a six-year-old. In 1871 he turned out a "Schneiderpolka"--a "Tailor's -Polka". There followed dance pieces for piano, "wedding music" for -keyboard and children's instruments, some marches and more miscellany of -the sort. It was related by his naturally proud relations that the lad -could write notes even before he had learned the alphabet. There would -be no particular point in detailing these boyish accomplishments, yet -when Richard was twelve an uncle paid for the publication by Breitkopf -und Haertel of a "Festival March", which gained the distinction of -appearing as "Opus 1". It need hardly be said that he participated in -domestic performances of chamber music with regularity. All the same his -school work maintained a high level, even if it did not consume a -needless amount of time. He also found leisure to jot in the pages of -his mathematics copybook whole passages of a violin concerto which -appears to have been set down during his classroom lessons. According to -his biographer, Willy Brandl, the piece was written so rapidly that the -student contrived a three-line staff instead of the usual five-line one. - -At this period his musical tastes were colored by those of his father. -Thus there is no reason for surprise that the compositions he turned out -up to the end of his high school days were the customary platitudes of -classical and romantic models. Especially Schumann and Mendelssohn were -rather colorlessly reflected in the products the youth fashioned. Even -considering his father's poisonous detestation of Wagner it still -remains hard to grasp how weak was the pressure the creator of _Tristan_ -and _Meistersinger_ exercised on the son precisely when the Wagnerian -idiom was beginning to permeate the language of music. More than that, -it took time for the boy Strauss to rid his system of the ludicrous -prejudices he parroted for a while. To his friend the composer, Ludwig -Thuille, he confided that _Lohengrin_ (which he heard at fifteen) was -"sweet and sickly, in all but the action"; and after his first exposure -to _Siegfried_ he lamented that he was "more cruelly bored than I can -tell!" Then he concluded with this burst of prophecy: "You can be -assured that in ten years nobody will remember who Richard Wagner was!" - -Young Strauss was to outlive such heresies by the sensible process of -steeping himself in Wagner's scores rather than by viewing inadequate -performances as truths of Holy Writ. It is hardly necessary to emphasize -the dismay of Franz Strauss as, little by little, he became aware of the -turn things were taking. He who had striven to bring up his son in his -own Philistine ways was gradually brought face to face with the -upsetting fact that the young man might be getting out of hand! Richard -was no music school or conservatory pupil, and had presumably none too -many academic precepts to unlearn. One advantage of this was that -nothing tempted him to cut short other phases of his education; and in -the autumn of 1882 he began to attend philosophical, literary and other -cultural lectures at the University of Munich, so that there were no -serious gaps in his schooling. He continued to compose industriously (a -chorus in the _Elektra_ of Sophocles was one of his creations in this -period); but in after years he warned against "rushing before the public -with unripe efforts." Subsequently he visited upon the works of his -salad days this judgment: "In them I lost much real freshness and -force." So much for those who question even today the soundness of this -early verdict. - - * * * - -One advantage he came early to enjoy--the good will of Hermann Levi, the -Munich conductor (or, let us give him his more imposing official title -of "Generalmusikdirektor") who first presided in Bayreuth over Wagner's -_Parsifal_. In 1881 the outstanding chamber music organization of the -Bavarian capital performed a string quartet of young Strauss and very -shortly afterwards Levi sponsored the first public hearing of a rather -more ambitious effort, a symphony in D minor. Before a capacity audience -the noted conductor went so far as to congratulate the high school -student. It should be set down to the credit of the scarcely -seventeen-year-old composer that he did not for a moment suffer the -tribute to turn his head. Next morning the student was back in his -classroom, as unconcerned with his triumphs of the preceding evening as -if they had all been no more than an agreeable dream. The usually -peppery father appears to have been somewhat less balanced than his son -and a little earlier took it upon himself to dispatch Richard's -_Serenade for Wind Instruments_, Opus 7, to Hans von Buelow. "Not a -genius, but at the most a talent of the kind that grows on every bush," -shot back the latter after a glimpse at the score of this adolescent -production. But Buelow's irritable mood softened before long and he was -considerably more flattering about other of the composer's works which -came to his attention. All the same Buelow grew to like the _Serenade_ -well enough to make room for it on one of his programs. Meantime--on -November 27, 1882--Franz Wuellner produced it in Dresden. And it was a -strange quirk of fate which made of this piece the unexpected vehicle -for Richard's first exploit as a conductor! It so happened that Buelow -eventually scheduled it (1884) for one of his concerts. At the eleventh -hour the older musician, suffering from an indisposition, appealed to -his young friend to direct his own work. Trusting to luck Richard -suffered a baton to be thrust into his hands, and almost in a dream -state, hardly knowing how things would turn out, piloted the players -through the score. "All that I realize," he afterwards said, "is that I -did not break down!" - -Young Strauss was not idling. The products of his energetic young -manhood if they do not bulk large in his exploits indicate clearly how -carefully he was striving to learn his craft without, at the same time, -seeking to blaze trails. One finds him turning out in 1881 five piano -pieces as well as the string quartet just mentioned; a piano sonata, a -sonata for cello and piano, a concerto for violin and orchestra, _Mood -Pictures_ for piano, a concerto for horn and orchestra, and a symphony -in F minor. This symphony, incidentally, was first produced by Theodore -Thomas, on December 13, 1884, at a concert of the New York Philharmonic -Society. Perhaps more important, however, were the songs Strauss was -writing at this stage. For they have preserved a vitality which -Strauss's instrumental products of that early period have long since -lost. It is not easy to grasp at this date that it was the early Strauss -the world has to thank for such masterpieces of song literature as the -incorrigibly popular (one might almost say hackneyed), _Lieder_ as -"Zueignung", "Die Nacht", "Die Georgine", "Geduld", "Allerseelen", -"Staendchen", and a number of other such lyric specimens, many of them in -the truest tradition of the German art song. Indeed, the boldness, the -diversity, declamatory, rhythmic and melodic features of Strauss's -achievements in this field might almost be said to have preceded the -more sensational aspects of his orchestral works. - - * * * - -The songs of Strauss, the earliest specimens of which date from 1882, -and which span (though in steadily diminishing numbers), the most -fruitful years of his life, aggregate something like 150. If the better -known ones are with piano accompaniment, not a few are scored for an -orchestral one. A large number long ago became musical household words, -along with the _Lieder_ of Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, though having -a physiognomy quite their own. The woman who became his wife, Pauline de -Ahna, was an accomplished vocalist and that circumstance goes far to -account for the diversity of his efforts in this province. The joint -recitals of the pair stimulated for a considerable period the composer's -lyric imagination. If his inspiration eventually sought expression in -larger frames it must be noted that the slant of his genius habitually -ran to larger conceptions. In any event the _Lieder Abende_ of Strauss -and his betrothed help explain the creative impulses which at this stage -found so much of their outlet in song-writing. The composer was later to -explain that a new song might be dashed off at any half-way idle -moment--might even be scribbled down in the twinkling of an eye between -the acts of an opera performance or during a concert intermission. And -as spontaneously as Schubert, Richard Strauss busied himself with poems -of the most varied character. - - * * * - -On the young man's twenty-first birthday Hans von Buelow recommended to -Duke George of Meiningen "an uncommonly gifted" musician as substitute -while he himself went on a journey for his shattered health. Buelow -referred to the suggested deputy as "Richard III", since after Richard -Wagner, "there could be no Richard II." Strauss arrived in Meiningen in -October, 1885. The little ducal capital boasted a high artistic -standing. Its theatrical company enjoyed international fame. The town, -to be sure, had no opera, but the orchestra, though numbering only 48 -instrumentalists, had been so trained by the suffering yet exigent Buelow -that it was virtually unrivalled in Germany. The newcomer was encouraged -to submit under his mentor's eye to an intensive training. Buelow's -rehearsals ran from nine in the morning till one in the afternoon and -his disciple from Munich was invariably on hand from the first to the -last note. The rest of the day was devoted to score reading and to every -subtlety of conductor's technic. The young man was absolutely -overwhelmed by "the exhaustive manner in which Buelow sought out the -ultimate poetic content of the scores of Beethoven and Wagner." And a -favorite saying of the older musician was never to be forgotten by his -disciple from Munich: "First learn to read the score of a Beethoven -symphony with absolute correctness, and you will already have its -interpretation." - - * * * - -Strauss made other friends and valuable connections in Meiningen. One of -the most important and influential of these was an impassioned devotee -of Wagner, Alexander Ritter. Like so many apostles of the creator of -_Parsifal_ at that period, Ritter was a violent opponent of Brahms. -Besides he was the composer of a comic opera, "Der faule Hans", and of a -symphonic poem that once enjoyed a vogue in Germany, "Kaiser Rudolfs -Ritt zum Grabe". It was Ritter's service to familiarize Strauss with -some of the deepest secrets of the scores and writings of Wagner as well -as of Liszt, and he understood how to fire his young friend with soaring -enthusiasm for his own ideals. He also did much to inspire the budding -conductor with a taste for the writings of Schopenhauer, an inclination -he himself had inherited from Wagner. Ritter's influence, in short, was -one of the luckiest developments at this stage of Strauss's career. - -The first concert the youth from Munich conducted in Meiningen took -place on October 18, 1885. It afforded him a chance to exploit his -talents as pianist and batonist as well as composer, what with a program -that included Beethoven's _Coriolanus_ Overture and Seventh Symphony, -Mozart's C minor Piano Concerto and that F minor Symphony of his own -which Theodore Thomas had conducted the previous year in New York. -Strauss had every reason to be pleased with the outcome. Buelow speaking -of his debut as pianist and conductor had referred to it as "geradezu -verblueffend" ("simply stunning"); even the hard-shelled Brahms, who -chanced to be on hand, had deigned to encourage him with a cordial "very -nice, young man!" When on December 1 of that year Buelow gave up the -orchestra's leadership, Strauss inherited the post, conducted all -concerts and had to direct, sometimes on the spur of the moment, almost -anything this or that high placed personage might suddenly take a fancy -to hear. With the courage of despair he repeatedly attempted -compositions he hardly knew or had not directed publicly. Yet he never -made a botch of the job, inwardly as he may have quaked. - - * * * - -To this period belongs a composition which has survived and at intervals -turns up on our symphonic programs--the curious _Burleske_ for piano and -orchestra. The piece is something of a problem but it is one of the most -yeasty and original products of its composer's youth. It possesses a -type of wit and bold humor worthy of the subsequent author of _Till -Eulenspiegel_. If it still betrays Brahmsian influences some of those -dialogues between piano and kettledrums depart sharply from the more -flabby romantic effusions of the youth who still clung to the coat tails -of Schumann, Mendelssohn and some lesser romantics. Rightly or wrongly -the composer always harbored a dislike for the _Burleske_ though when he -created it his original instinct led him aright, if more or less -unconsciously. Not till four years later did the pianist, Eugen -d'Albert, give it a public hearing in Eisenach; at that, Strauss himself -never brought himself to dignify the _Burleske_ with an opus number and -insisted he would not have consented to its publication but for his need -of funds. Today the saucy little score seems more alive than certain -other early efforts which were rather closer to their composer's heart. - -Meiningen had been a sort of stepping stone. Strongly against the advice -of Hans von Buelow, who detested Munich from the depths of his being, -Strauss, nevertheless, accepted a conductor's post in his native city, -where he had the advantage of continuing his stimulating contact with -Alexander Ritter, who had followed him to the Bavarian capital. Yet he -did not look forward to a Munich position with particular joy. Before -entering on his duties he permitted himself a vacation in Naples and -Sorrento. In Munich he found the Royal Court Theatre bogged down in a -morass of routine. The musical direction of that establishment, though -in the capable hands of Hermann Levi, was unfired by real enthusiasm, -let alone true inspiration. The first of Strauss's official assignments -was the direction of Boieldieu's opera comique, _Jean de Paris_, and a -quantity of similar old and harmless pieces. One promised duty which -augured well was a production of Wagner's boyhood opera, _Die Feen_. He -would probably never have been promised anything so rewarding had not -the conductor for whom it had been intended in the first place fallen -ill. But even this unusual prize was in the end snatched from his grasp -after he had presided over the rehearsals. At the last moment the -direction of the Wagner curio was assigned to a certain Fischer. There -was a managerial conference concerning the matter at which, we are told, -"Strauss was like a lioness defending her young"; but the Intendant put -a stop to the argument by announcing that "he disliked conducting in the -Buelow style" and that, moreover, Strauss was becoming intolerable -because of his high pretensions "for one of his youth and lack of -experience!" - -Meanwhile, the composer made the most of leisure he did not really want, -by occupying himself with more or less creative work. One of his -editorial feats of this period was a new stage version of Gluck's -_Iphigenie en Tauride_, manifestly inspired by Wagner's treatment of the -same master's _Iphigenie en Aulide_. More important still was his first -really large-scale work, _Aus Italien_, to which he gave the subtitle -_Symphonic Fantasy for large Orchestra_. He had completed the score in -1886 and on March 2, 1887, he conducted it at the Munich Odeon. To his -uncle Horburger he wrote an amusing account of the first performance at -which, it appears, moderate applause followed the first three movements -and violent hissing competed with handclappings. "There has been much -ado here over the performance of my _Fantasy_" Strauss wrote his uncle -"and general amazement and wrath because I, too, have begun to go my own -way." And his biographer, Max Steinitzer, told that the composer's -father, outraged by the hisses, hurried to the artist's room to see his -son and found him, far from disturbed, sitting on a table dangling his -legs! One detail the composer of this symphonic Italian excursion failed -to notice--namely that in utilizing the tune _Funiculi, Funicula_ for -the movement depicting the colorful life of Naples he was quoting, not -as he fancied a genuine Neapolitan folksong, but an only too familiar -tune by Luigi Denza, who lived much of his life in a London suburb! - -Be all this as it may, Strauss had more to occupy his thoughts than the -fortunes of his Italian impressions to which he had given musical shape. -In 1886-87 he composed (besides a sonata in E flat for violin and piano -and a number of fine _Lieder_--among them the lovely and uplifting -"Breit ueber mein Haupt") the tone poem, _Macbeth_ (least known of them -all). He revised it in 1890 and on October 13 of that year conducted it -in Weimar. But _Macbeth_ has been completely overshadowed by the next -tone poem (of earlier opus number but later composition), the glowing, -romantic, vibrant _Don Juan_ which has a spontaneity and an -indestructible freshness that give it a kind of electrical vitality none -of the orchestral works of their composer's early manhood quite rival, -unless we except that masterpiece of humor, _Till Eulenspiegel_--itself -a different proposition. It had been the powerful impressions made on -the composer by some of the Shakespearian productions of the dramatic -company in Meiningen which gave the incentive for _Macbeth_. In the case -of _Don Juan_ the moving impulse was the poem of Nikolaus Lenau (whose -real name was Niembsch von Strahlenau), and who described the hero of -his work as "one longing to find one who represented incarnate -womanhood" in whom he could enjoy "all the women on earth whom he cannot -as individuals possess." Unable in the nature of things to achieve this -tall order Lenau's _Don Juan_ falls prey to "Disgust, and this Disgust -is the devil that fetches him." Strauss gave no definite meanings to -specific phases of his music, though he was not to want for interpreters -and one of them, Wilhelm Mauke, found it preferable to discard the model -supplied by Lenau and to discover in the tone poem the various women who -inhabit Mozart's _Don Giovanni_. Be this as it may, the score delighted -the first hearers when it was played in Weimar; they tried to have it -repeated on the spot. Hans von Buelow wrote that his protege had, with -_Don Juan_ had an "almost unheard-of success"; and the young composer -might well have seen a good augury in the notorious Eduard Hanslick's -outcries to the effect that the score was chiefly a "tumult of dazzling -color daubs" and in his shrieks that Strauss "had a great talent for -false music, for the musically ugly." - -It cannot be said that he was truly happy with his Munich experiences -and the disappointments which, if the truth were known, seemed for the -moment to dog his footsteps. He was, to be sure, adding to his -accomplishments as a composer and plans for an opera began to stir in -him. Moreover, he had more and more chances to accept guest engagements -as a conductor and such opportunities were taking him on more and more -tours in Germany. He had striven to do his best in the city of his birth -yet few seemed to be grateful for his efforts to clean up drab -accumulations of routine. Buelow realized from long and heart-breaking -experience what his friend was undergoing. Very few thanked the idealist -for his efforts to better the musical standing of his home town. - - * * * - -At what might be described as a truly psychological moment of his career -Strauss was approached by Buelow's old friend, the former Liszt pupil, -Hans von Bronsart, with an invitation to transfer his activities to -Weimar. He had every reason to look with favor on the project. Weimar -was hallowed in his eyes by its earlier literary and musical -associations. It had harbored Goethe and Schiller and been sanctified in -the young musician's sight by the labors of Liszt. His Munich friend, -the tenor Heinrich Zeller, who had coached Wagner roles with him, had -settled there, and a young soprano, Pauline de Ahna, the daughter of a -Bavarian general with strong musical enthusiasms, soon followed him. In -proper course she was to become Richard Strauss's wife. A high-spirited, -outspoken lady, never disposed to mince words, a source of innumerable -yarns and witticisms, and who saw to it that her celebrated husband -carefully toed the mark, Pauline Strauss was in every way a chapter by -herself. And when, not very long after his death she followed him to the -grave it seemed only a benign provision of fate that she should not too -long survive him. - -Strauss almost instantly infused a new blood into the artistic life of -Weimar, where he settled in 1889 and remained till 1894. The worthy old -court Kapellmeister, Eduard Lassen, was sensible enough to allow his -energetic new associate complete freedom of action. True, the artistic -means at his disposal were relatively modest and at first they might -well have given the ambitious newcomer pause. The orchestra then -contained only six first violins; there was a painfully superannuated -little chorus and most of the leading singers had seen better days. But -the conductor from Munich was disturbed by none of these apparent -handicaps. In Bayreuth he had already learned the proper way of -producing Wagner, and even when the means were limited, he tolerated no -concessions; all Wagnerian performances had to be done without cuts or -at least with a minimum of curtailments. A wisecrack began to go the -rounds: "What is Richard Strauss doing?" to which the reply was: -"Strauss is opening cuts!" The moldy old settings were replaced by new -ones and once when there were insufficient funds to buy new stage -appointments Strauss approached the Grand Duke with a plea that he might -lay out of his own pocket a thousand Marks to freshen the settings. To -the credit of the ruler it should be told that he refused the offer and -disbursed the sum himself. But Strauss's reforms were far from ending -there. He once confessed that in his comprehensive job he was not only -conductor but "coach, scene painter, stage manager and tailor"--in -short, a thoroughgoing Pooh-Bah. He threw himself heart and soul into -the job, so much so that in spite of a small stage and limited means he -produced, in the presence of none other than Cosima Wagner a _Lohengrin_ -that deeply gripped her. - - * * * - -He had symphonic concerts as well as operas to occupy him. At one of the -former he transported his hearers with the world premiere of his _Don -Juan_. The date deserves to be noted--November 11, 1889. That same year -he had composed another tone poem, _Death and Transfiguration_, and on -June 21, 1889, he permitted an audience in nearby Eisenach to hear it. -The work is program music, if you will; but the idea that it originally -set out to illustrate the poem about the man dying in a "necessitous -little room" and, after his death struggles, translated to supernal -glories, is wrong. Moreover the long accepted notion, that the music is -based on lines by Alexander Ritter, is fallacious. For, in the first -place the composer did not aim to illustrate his friend's word picture; -and in the second, Ritter wrote the poem only _after_ becoming -acquainted with the score. This is what explains a certain incongruity -between Ritter's verses and the tones which, in reality were never -conceived in slavish illustration of them. Hanslick, wrong as usual, was -to write misleadingly: "Once again a previously printed poem makes it -certain that the listener cannot go awry; for the music follows this -poetic program step by step, quite as in a ballet scenario." And he -spoke of the score as a gruesome combat of dissonances in which the -wood-wind howls in runs of chromatic thirds while the brass growls and -all the strings rage! - -By this time accustomed to such critical nonsense the composer did not -suffer himself to be troubled. What disturbed him much more was that his -old champion, von Buelow, gave indications of no longer seeing eye to eye -with him. At Buelow's suggestion Strauss had revised and newly -instrumented _Macbeth_ but the piece was to continue a stepchild. Soon -he was increasing his output of songs and enriching Liedersingers with -such treasures as "Ruhe, meine Seele", "Caecilie", "Heimliche -Aufforderung" and "Morgen"; while only a few short years ahead lay -"Traum durch die Daemmerung", "Nachtgesang" and "Schlagende Herzen", to -delight nearly two generations of recitalists. - - * * * - -Strauss had always been blessed with a robust health. Unlike Wagner, for -instance, he never suffered from exacerbated nerves and violent extremes -of unbalanced mood. But at the period of which we speak he did -experience one of his rare periods of illness. What between his guest -engagements, his rehearsals, the strain of composing, attending to -details of publication and myriad other obligations of a traveling -conductor and virtuoso, he came down in May, 1891, with a menacing -grippe which sent him to bed and threatened serious complications. He -was resigned to anything, even if he did confess: "Dying would not be in -itself so bad, but first I should like to be able to conduct _Tristan_!" -He recovered and had his wish in 1892. But in the summer he was sick -once more, this time with pneumonia. Now it looked as if one lung were -seriously threatened. He was granted the vacation he requested, from -November, 1892, to July of the succeeding year. Taking some works and -sketches he started, on the advice of his physicians, for the south. - -The convalescent, with a finished opera libretto in his baggage went to -repair his health in Italy, Greece and Egypt. In Egypt he recovered -completely. In the Anhalter railway station, Berlin, he was to see for -the last time the mortally sick von Buelow, likewise journeying to Egypt -in a last effort to repair his shattered constitution. Poor Buelow was -not to survive the trip. The wiry frame of Strauss helped him over any -threat of tuberculosis and not only defied any peril to his lungs but -seemed actually to renew his creative powers. The libretto which -occupied his attention was that of his opera, _Guntram_, the first and -least known of his productions for the lyric stage. - -_Guntram_ is without question a "Stiefkind" among Richard Strauss's -operas. The average Strauss enthusiast's acquaintance with its music may -be said to be confined to the brief phrase from it cited in the section -called _The Hero's Works of Peace_ in the tone poem _Ein Heldenleben_. -Nevertheless, the opera cost the composer six long years of his time. It -received a performance in Weimar, July 12, 1894. On October 29, 1940, it -was to be heard again, and once more in Weimar. Strauss tells in his -little volume, _Betrachtungen und Erinnerungen_, that it had "no more -than a _succes d'estime_ and that its failure to gain a foothold -anywhere (even with generous cuts) took from him all courage to write -operas." Efforts were made late in its creator's life to revive it, all -of them as good as futile. As recently as June 13, 1942, the Berlin -State Opera tried, with the help of the conductor, Robert Heger, to pump -life into it. Strauss found not a little of the opera "still vital" -("_lebensfaehig_") and felt sure it would produce a fine effect given a -large orchestra. He liked particularly in his old age the second half of -the second act and the whole of the third. The book has been described -as revealing the influence of Wagner. Guntram, a member of a religious -order in the time of the Minnesingers, esteems the ruling duke, but -kills himself, after renouncing the duchess, the object of his -affection. Despite the dramatic resemblances to _Tannhaeuser_ and -_Lohengrin_ Alexander Ritter found in the opera a departure from -Wagnerian influences. - -Slowly as Strauss labored over the three acts of _Guntram_ he spent no -such time on the tone poems which now began to follow in rapid -succession. After the ill-fated opera and a quantity of fine new -_Lieder_, superbly diversified in expressive scope and lyric moods, -there followed the tone poem which, apart from _Don Juan_ continues even -in the present age to address itself most warmly to the public -heart--_Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks_. Analysts of one sort and -another have provided the work with a program, which has long been -accepted as standard. The composer himself declined to supply one, -maintaining that the listener himself should seek to "crack the hard nut -Till, the folk rogue of ancient tradition" had supplied his public. He -himself would say nothing to clear up the secrets of the lovable knave, -who came to his merited end on the gallows. If Strauss confided to his -public the nature of many of Eulenspiegel's various ribaldries and -madcap adventures he might, he maintained, easily cause offense. -Concertgoers could cudgel their brains all they chose, Richard Strauss -would keep his own counsel! Naturally, his work acquired, rightly or -wrongly, regiments of "interpreters". If "nasty, noisome, rollicking -Till, with the whirligig scale of a yellow clarinet in his brain," as -the worthy William J. Henderson eventually described him, the -irrepressible "Volksnarr" was ultimately to become visualized as a kind -of medieval ballet fable sporting all the benefits of story-book scenery -and dramatic action. The result actually was not too remote from what -Strauss originally intended. Its popular musical elements, such as the -fetching polka tune (or "Gassenhauer"), the use of the folk melody ("Ich -hatt' einen Kamaraden") and a good deal else seemed theatrically -conceived. The use of the Rondeau form was ideally suited to the idea -which the composer strove to formulate. At one period Strauss, conscious -of the operatic elements of _Till_, was moved to give the work a -thoroughgoing dramatic setting and began to sketch the piece as a sort -of lyric drama, or rather a scherzo with staging and action. But he lost -interest in the scheme and did not progress beyond plans for a first -act. Franz Wuellner conducted the premiere of _Till Eulenspiegel_ in -Cologne, November 5, 1895. - - * * * - -It has been pointed out that if the masculine element is idealized in -Strauss's tone poems it is rather the feminine which he gives precedence -in his operas. Something of an exception to this is exemplified in the -next purely orchestral work, the tone poem _Thus Spake Zarathustra_, -which followed less than a year later and was produced under its -composer's direction at one of the Museum concerts in -Frankfurt-on-the-Main, November 27, 1896. The score is described as -"freely after Nietzsche". At once there arose protests that Strauss had -tried to set Nietzschean philosophy to music! Actually he had aimed to -do no such preposterous thing, and _Zarathustra_ posed no genuine -problems. If the score is the weaker for some of its syrupy and -sentimental pages it includes another, such as the magnificent sunrise -picture at the beginning, which can only be placed for overpowering -effect beside the passage "Let there be Light and there was Light" in -Haydn's _Creation_. If ever anything could testify to Strauss's -incontestable genius it is this grandiose page! Other portions, it may -be conceded, lapse into commonplace, but the close in two keys at once -(B and C) offered one of the early examples of polytonality that duly -outraged the timid. Today this clash of tonalities has quite lost its -power to frighten. In 1898 and for quite some time thereafter, it passed -for hardly less than an invention of Satan! Strauss intended this -juxtaposition to characterize "two conflicting worlds of ideas". -Possibly it can be made to sound sharply dissonant on the piano; the -magic of Strauss's orchestration, however, eliminates all suggestion of -crude cacophony. - -On March 18, 1898, Cologne heard under the baton of Franz Wuellner, a -work of rather different order, _Don Quixote_, Fantastic Variations on a -Theme of Knightly Character. It is a set of orchestral variations on two -themes, the one heard in the solo cello and characterizing the Knight of -the Rueful Countenance, the second (solo viola) picturing his squire, -Sancho Panza. As a feat of individualizing these variations are a thing -apart. The tone painting is unrivalled in its composer's achievements up -to that time. A number of special effects, which long invited attention -over and above their real musical worth called forth considerably more -astonishment than they really deserved. The pitiful bleatings of a flock -of sheep, violently scattered by the lance of the crack-brained Don, his -attacks on a company of itinerant monks, his ride through the air (amid -the whistlings of a "wind machine")--these and other effects of the sort -are actually only minor phases of the score. Its memorable qualities, -aside from striking pictorial conceits, are rather to be found in the -moving and tender pages portraying the passing of Don Quixote as the -mists clear from his poor addled brain. There are episodes of a melting -tenderness in these which rank among the most eloquent utterances -Strauss has attained. - -Still another tone poem was to succeed--_A Hero's Life_ (_Ein -Heldenleben_) performed under the composer's direction in Frankfurt. The -work is autobiographical with the composer himself as its hero and his -helpmate, (obviously Frau Pauline, his "better half" as she was to be -called). For a long time _Ein Heldenleben_ passed as the prize horror -among Strauss's creations, especially its fierce and rambunctious battle -scene, which some critics considered a kind of bugaboo with which to -frighten the wits out of grown-up concertgoers! For its day _A Hero's -Life_ was unquestionably strong meat. If people were horrified by the -racket and cacophony of the battle scene they were no less disposed to -irritation at the cackling sounds with which Strauss pilloried his -benighted foes who resented his aims and accomplishments. And they were -displeased by the immodesty with which he exhibited himself as a real -and misprized hero by the citation of fragments from his own works. -Some, among them as staunch a Strauss admirer as Romain Rolland, were -disturbed not because the composer talked in his works "about himself" -but "because of the way in which he talked about himself." All the same -Strauss was to boast no truer champion throughout his career than the -sympathetic and keenly understanding author of _Jean-Christophe_. - -_Ein Heldenleben_ was the last but one of the series of tone poems which -were to lead to a new phase of Richard Strauss's career. The last of -this series, the _Symphonia Domestica_, was completed in Charlottenburg, -Berlin, on December 31, 1903. Its first public hearing took place under -the composer's direction in Carnegie Hall, New York, March 21, 1904. The -_Domestic Symphony_, "dedicated to my dear wife and our boy" is in "one -movement and three subdivisions. After an introduction and scherzo there -follow without break an _Adagio_, then a tumultuous double fugue and -finale." The reviewers discovered all manner of programmatic -connotations in this depiction of a day in Strauss's family life though -he was eventually to tell a New York reviewer that he "wanted the work -to be taken as music" pure and simple and not as an elaboration of a -specific program. He maintained his belief "that the anxious search on -the part of the public for the exactly corresponding passages in the -music and the program, the guessing as to significance of this or that, -the distraction of following a train of thought exterior to the music -are destructive to the musical enjoyment." And he forbade the -publication of what he sought to express till after the concert. - - [Illustration: Richard Strauss and Family] - -He might as well have saved himself the trouble! There is no room here -to point out even a small fraction of what the critics heard in the -work, encouraged by a casual note or two the conductor found it -necessary to set down at certain stages of the score. The youngster's -aunts are supposed to remark that the infant is "just like his father", -the uncles "just like his mother". A glockenspiel announces that the -time, at one point is seven in the morning. The child gets his bath and -the ablutions are accompanied by shrieks and squeals. Husband and wife -discuss the future of the baby and there is a lively domestic argument -which ends happily. Ernest Newman, irritated like numerous other -reviewers by the torrents of vain talk the piece called forth, was to -complain that "Strauss behaved as foolishly over the _Domestica_ as he -might have been expected to do after his previous exploits in the same -line"... - -The first organization to perform the work was the orchestra of Hermann -Hans Wetzler, in New York, and it took several months longer for the -music to reach Germany. Mr. Newman had found the texture of the whole is -"less interesting than in any other of Strauss's works; the short and -snappy thematic fragments out of which the composer builds contrasting -badly with the great sweeping themes of the earlier symphonic poems ... -the realistic effects in the score are at once so atrociously ugly and -so pitiably foolish that one listens to them with regret that a composer -of genius should ever have fallen so low." - - [Illustration: A page from the original score of "Elektra"] - - * * * - -More than a decade was to elapse before Strauss was to concern himself -again with problems of symphonic music. Opera and ballet were to be the -chief business of those activities which one may look upon as the middle -period of his creative life. One may be permitted a short backward -glance to account for some of his previous creations. Songs (a number of -the best of them), an "Enoch Arden" setting (declamation with piano -accompaniment) occupy the late years of the 19th Century and the dawn of -the 20th, not to mention the choral ballad for mixed chorus and -orchestra _Taillefer_. More important, however, is a second operatic -venture. This opera in one act, called _Feuersnot_, is a setting of a -text by the noted Ernst von Wolzogen, who was associated with the vogue -of the so-called "Ueberbrettl", a sort of up-to-date vaudeville, an -"arty" movement typical of the period. _Feuersnot_ is a picture of a -"fire famine" brought about by an irate sorcerer in revenge for the act -of a maiden who scorned his love. Thereby all the fires of the town are -extinguished! The piece is rather too long for a short opera and too -short for a full-length one. But the text is rich in word play, punning -satire, double meanings and topical allusions, interlarded with biting -reflections on the manner in which Munich had once turned against Wagner -and on the trouble the benighted burghers would have in similarly -ridding themselves of the troublesome Strauss! There is not a little of -the real Strauss in the music, though at that, less than one might -expect from the composer of _Till Eulenspiegel_ and _Ein Heldenleben_ -which already lay some distance in the past. _Feuersnot_ was first -staged at the Dresden Opera on November 21, 1901, under the leadership -of Ernst von Schuch. And the consequence was that for years to come -Strauss's operatic premieres took place in that gracious city. - - * * * - -We now come into view of a milestone of modern music drama. In 1902 -Strauss attended a performance of Oscar Wilde's play, "Salome", at Max -Reinhardt's Kleines Theater in Berlin. Gertrude Eysoldt had the title -role. The Swiss musicologist, Willy Schuh, relates that the composer, -after the performance was accosted by his friend, Heinrich Gruenfeld, who -remarked: "Strauss, this would be an operatic subject for you!" "I am -already composing it," was the reply. And the composer went on to tell: -"The Viennese writer, Anton Lindner, had already sent me the play and -offered to make an opera text of it for me. Upon my agreement he sent me -some cleverly versified opening scenes which did not, however, inspire -me with an urge to composition; till one day the question shaped itself -in my mind: 'Why do I not compose at once, without further -preliminaries: Wie schoen ist die Prinzessin Salome heute Nacht!' From -then on it was not difficult to cleanse the piece of 'literature', so -that it has become a thoroughly fine libretto! - -"Necessity gave me a really exotic scheme of harmony, which, showed -itself especially in odd, heterogeneous cadences having the effect of -changeable silk. It was the desire for the sharpest kind of individual -characterization that led me to bitonality. One can look upon this as a -solitary experiment as applied in a special case but not recommend it -for imitation." - -Difficulties began with von Schuch's first piano rehearsals. A number of -singers sought to give back their parts till Karl Burrian shamed them by -answering, when asked how he was progressing with the role of Herod: "I -already know it by heart!" A little later the Salome, Frau Wittich, -threatened to go on strike because of the taxing part and the massive -orchestra. Soon, too, she began to rail against "perversity and impiety -of the opera, refused to do this or that 'because I am a decent woman'," -and drove the stage manager almost frantic. Strauss remarked that her -figure was 'not really suited to the 16-year-old Princess with the -Isolde voice' and complained that in subsequent performances her dance -and her actions with Jochanaan's head overstepped all bounds of -propriety and taste." - -In Berlin, according to Strauss, the Kaiser would permit the performance -of the work, only after Intendant von Huelsen had the idea of "indicating -at the close by a sudden shining of the morning star the coming of the -Three Holy Kings." Nevertheless, Wilhelm II remarked to Huelsen: "I am -sorry that Strauss composed this _Salome_. I like him, but he is going -to do himself terrible harm with it!" At the dress rehearsal the famous -high B flat of the double basses so filled Count Seebach with the fear -of an outbreak of hilarity, that he prevailed upon the player of the -English horn to mitigate the effect, somewhat, "by means of a sustained -B flat on that instrument." Strauss's own father, hearing his son play a -portion of the opera on the piano, exclaimed a short time before his -death: "My God, this nervous music! It is as if beetles were crawling -about in one's clothing!" And Cosima Wagner declared after listening to -the closing scene: "This is madness!" The clergy, too, was up in arms -and the first performance at the Vienna State Opera in October, 1918, -took place only after an agitated exchange of letters with Archbishop -Piffl. The orchestra of _Salome_ in all numbers 112 players. Strauss, -however eventually arranged the opera for fewer players and Willy Schuh -tells of the composer having conducted it in Innsbruck with an orchestra -of only 56 players, winds in twos but highly efficient solo -instrumentalists. - -At all events, Strauss has been described as an inimitable conductor of -_Salome_. Willy Schuh (whom Strauss designated late in his life as his -"official" biographer, when the time came to prepare his "standard" life -story) alludes to Strauss as an "allegro composer", whose direction of -_Salome_ was of altogether remarkable "tranquillity" and finds that the -real secret of his direction of this music drama was to be sought in the -"restfulness" and creative aspects of his interpretation, "which avoids -every excess of whipped up, overheated effects and sensationalism." It -is, therefore, illuminating to consider the modifications the years have -wrought on the interpretative treatment proper to the work. Little by -little the legend of the decadent, hysterical, hyper-sensual work was -replaced by the assurance of its almost classical character; and the -truth of Oscar Wilde's declaration to Sarah Bernhardt when the play was -new: "I aimed only to create something curious and sensual" has at -length come to the fore. - - * * * - -There is scarcely any need to recount in any detail the early -difficulties of _Salome_ in America, when the scandalized cries that -arose after the work received a single representation at the -Metropolitan Opera House, in New York, only to be shelved as -"detrimental to the best interests of the institution" after a solitary -representation still ranks among the notorious and less creditable -legends of the American stage. Strauss soon after this taste of the -operations of American puritanism accused Americans of "hypocrisy, the -most loathsome of all vices." He was handsomely avenged, however, when -on January 28, 1909, Oscar Hammerstein revived the work (with Mary -Garden as Salome) at his Manhattan Opera House and started it on a -triumphant American career, which confounded all the ludicrous -prognostications and horrified shouts with which it has been greeted -only a short time earlier. - -The work which followed _Salome_ was _Elektra_, the text of which was -the creation of Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Here began a collaboration -between poet and musician which was to last with fruitful results until -the latter's death, and to mark some of the high points of Strauss's -achievements. The story of their joint labors is detailed in a priceless -series of letters, brought out in 1925 under the editorial supervision -of the composer's son, Dr. Franz Strauss. These letters afford glimpses -into the workshop of librettist and composer which rank with some of the -most illuminating exchanges of the sort the history of music supplies. -From them we learn that before settling on the tragedy of the house of -Agamemnon the collaborators seriously pondered as operatic material -Calderon's _Daughter of the Air_ and also _Semiramis_. Then, early in -1908, they seem to have agreed on _Elektra_. Hofmannsthal's version of -the Greek legend (based on Sophocles) had been acted in Berlin (again -with Gertrude Eysolt in the title role); and no sooner had Strauss -witnessed the production than he concluded that the tragedy in this form -was virtually made to order for his music. - -On July 6, 1908, the composer wrote to Hofmannsthal: "_Elektra_ -progresses and is going well; I hope to hurry up the premiere for the -end of January at the latest." Strauss was as good as his word. The -first performance of _Elektra_ took place January 25, 1909, at the -Dresden opera, Ernst von Schuch conducting, with Anni Krull in the name -part, Ernestine Schumann-Heink as Klytemnestra and Carl Perron as -Orestes. If Strauss would have preferred to write a comic opera after -_Salome_ the pull of the _genre_ of "horror opera" was still strong upon -him and he was not yet ready to loose himself from its grip. _Elektra_ -was, if one chooses, gorier than _Salome_ and perhaps more genuinely -psychopathic but less susceptible to provocations of outraged morality. -Its instrumental requirements are rather larger than those of Strauss's -previous opera and the whole more nightmarish in its sensational -atmosphere. One had the impression, however, that with _Elektra_ the -composer had reached the end of a path. He could hardly repeat himself -with impunity along similar lines. A turn of the road or something -similar must come next unless Strauss's achievements were to run up -against a stone wall or lead him into a blind alley. - -This was not fated to happen. What the pair were now to achieve was what -was to prove their most abiding triumph--_Der Rosenkavalier_, of all the -operas of Richard Strauss the most lastingly popular and if not the -indisputable best at all events the most loved and, peradventure, the -most viable--and, if you will, the healthiest. If the piece is in some -respects sprawling and over-written it does contain a piece of moving -character-drawing which stands with the most memorable things the -literature of musical drama affords. In her musical and dramatic -lineaments the aristocratic Marschallin, whose common sense leads her, -on the threshold of middle age to renounce the calf love of the -17-year-old "Rose Bearer", Octavian, offers one of the finest and most -convincing figures to be found in modern opera--a creation not unworthy -to stand by the side of Wagner's Hans Sachs. The Baron Ochs, an outright -vulgarian, if the music accorded him does not lie, is a figure who might -have stepped out of the pages of Rabelais; Sophie, Faninal and all the -rest of the characters who enliven this canvas inhabited by almost -photographic types of 18th Century Vienna add up to a truly memorable -gallery with which Hofmannsthal and Strauss have brought to life an era -and a culture. Strauss's score has indisputable prolixities and -commonplaces. But these traits may pass as defects of the opera's -qualities and, as such, they can take their place in the vastly colorful -pageant of Hofmannsthal's comedy of manners. - -It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that a piece as earthy as -_Der Rosenkavalier_ should pass without provoking dissent. The German -Kaiser, who had small use for Strauss's operas, yielded to the urging of -the Crown Prince so far as to attend a performance, then left the -theatre with the words: "Det is keene Musik fuer mich!" ("That's no music -for me!") To spare the feelings of the straight-laced Kaiserin it was -arranged to place the Marschallin's bed in an adjoining alcove instead -of in high visibility on the stage when the curtain rose. Nor were these -the only objections. And, of course, there were the usual exclamations -about the length of the piece, no end of suggestions were advanced about -the best ways to shorten the work. Strauss, in protest against some of -the cuts von Schuch had practised in Dresden, once insisted he had -overlooked one of the most important possible abbreviations! Why not -omit the trio in the last act, which only holds up the action! It should -be explained that the great trio is the brightest gem of the act, -perhaps, indeed, the lyric climax of the whole score! As for the various -waltzes which fill so many pages of the third act (and to some degree of -the second) it may be admitted that, for all the skill of their -instrumentation they are by no means the highest melodic flights of -Strauss's fancy, some of them being merely successions of rather -trifling sequences. - - * * * - -It was assumed after _Der Rosenkavalier_ that the success of the opera -indicated that the composer, in a mood for concessions, had tried to -meet the public half-way and had renounced the violence, the cacophonies -and the dissonances and sensational traits supposed to be his -stock-in-trade. The comedy was assumed to be a proof of this. The real -truth was that Strauss had not changed his ideals and methods in the -least. It was, rather, _that the public, converted by force of habit, -was itself catching up with Strauss and that the idiom of the composer -was quickly becoming the musical language of the hour_. Sometimes it -took even a few idiosyncrasies of the musician for granted. One did not -always inquire too closely into just what he meant. There is one case -when Strauss even went to the length of _writing music_ to the words -"diskret, vertraulich" ("discreetly, confidentially") when Hofmannsthal -had written them as _stage directions_ to be followed _not_ as part of a -text to be sung! All the same Strauss usually kept an eagle eye on the -dramatic action he composed. With regard to the libretto of _Der -Rosenkavalier_ he wrote to the poet "the first act is excellent, the -second lacks certain essential contrasts which it is impossible to put -off till the third. With only a feeble success for the second act, the -opera is doomed." Be this as it may, _Der Rosenkavalier_ was anything -but "doomed". It was, in point of fact, the work which Strauss had in -mind when, at the close of the first _Elektra_ performance he remarked -to some friends: "Now I intend to write a Mozart opera!" Whether or not -"Der Rosenkavalier" really meets the prescriptions of a "Mozart opera" -we feel rather more certain that his next work, _Ariadne auf Naxos_ -comes closer to filling that bill. - - * * * - -The development of this work hangs together with production in -Stuttgart, October 25, 1912, of a German adaptation by Hofmannsthal of -Moliere's comedy _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_. Moliere's Monsieur -Jourdain, who has made money, induces a certain charming widow, the -Marquise Dorimene, to come to a dinner he gives in her honor. A -reprobate noble, Count Dorantes, tells the Marquise that the soiree at -Jourdain's home is really intended as a gesture of admiration for her. -M. Jourdain has engaged two companies of singers who are supposed to -perform a serious opera, _Ariadne on Naxos_, and a burlesque, _The -Unfaithful Zerbinetta and Her Four Lovers_. Both pieces are supposed to -have been composed by a protege of M. Jourdain. During a dinner scene -Strauss has recourse to bits of musical quotation--a fragment of -Wagner's _Rheingold_ when Rhine salmon is served and several bars of the -bleating sheep music from _Don Quixote_ when servants bring in roast -mutton. The banquet is interrupted and Jourdain finds it necessary to -curtail the scheduled program. As a result the young author is commanded -by Jourdain to combine his two works as best he can! - -Hofmannsthal's Moliere adaptation (in which the operatic part takes the -place of the French poet's original "Turkish ceremony") was a clumsy, -indeed an impractical distortion. But Strauss had no intention of -sacrificing his composition without at least an attempt to salvage -something from the wreck. The _Ariadne_ portion as well as the -_Zerbinetta_ companion piece were preserved but carefully detached from -the Moliere comedy. In place of this Strauss and Hofmannsthal supplied a -sort of explanatory prologue whereby arrangements are made for better or -worse to combine the stylized _opera seria_ about Ariadne and her rescue -on a desert island by the god Bacchus, with the comic doings of -Zerbinetta and her _commedia del arte_ companions. In this shape the -piece has succeeded in surviving and actually makes an engaging -entertainment, with the young composer (a trousered soprano) reminding -one of a lesser Octavian. - -There is considerable charming music in what is left of the originally -involved and over lengthy entertainment. First of all, Strauss was -suddenly to renounce the huge, overloaded orchestra of _Salome_, -_Elektra_ and _Rosenkavalier_ and to supplant it by a much smaller one -designed for a transparent texture of chamber music. In any case, the -definitive _Ariadne auf Naxos_ is a real achievement and stands among -Strauss's better and more memorable accomplishments. In the estimation -of the present writer the tenderer romantic portions of the piece excel -the comic pages associated with Zerbinetta and her merry crew. In -writing these the composer aimed to be Mozartean (or, if one prefers, -Rossinian) by assigning the colorature soprano a florid rondo of -incredible difficulties--so mercilessly exacting, indeed, that it first -moved Hofmannsthal to discreet protest. Eventually, the composer took -steps to modify some of the cruel problems of Zerbinetta's solo and it -is in this amended form that one generally hears this air today, when it -is sung as a concert number. - - * * * - -It would not be altogether excessive to claim that _Ariadne auf Naxos_ -marks a midpoint in Strauss's career. He still had a long and fruitful -life ahead of him and, as it was to prove, he was almost incorrigibly -prolific not hesitating to experiment with one type of composition as -well as another. On the eve of the First World War he became interested -in Diaghilew's Russian Ballet and the various types of choreographic and -scenic art which it was to engender. Hofmannsthal wanted him to occupy -his imagination and "to let the vision of one of the grandest episodes -of antique tragedy, namely the subject of Orestes and the Furies, -inspire you to write a symphonic poem, which might be a synthesis, of -your symphonies and your two tragic operas!" And the poet adjured him to -think of Orestes as represented by Nijinsky, "the greatest mimic genius -on the stage today!" But apparently Strauss had had his fill of the -_Elektra_ tragedy at this stage and had no stomach for more of this sort -of thing, whether symphonic or operatic. So he remained unmoved by -Hofmannsthal's urgings. Yet the Russian Ballet gave him a new idea. He -thought of a pantomimic ballet conceived in the shapes and the colors of -the epoch of Paolo Veronese. - -From this conception, based on a scenario by a Count Harry Kessler and -von Hofmannsthal dealing with the story of Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, -there grew the _Legend of Joseph_, first produced in Paris with -extraordinary scenic and decorative accouterments on May 14, 1914. The -staging was a pictorial triumph which, though the ballet was several -times performed elsewhere, appears never to have been anything like the -visual feast it was at its first showing. The score seems to have missed -fire and has never been reckoned among the composer's major exploits. -None the less the effect of the music in its proper frame and context is -compelling. What if much of it sounds like discarded leavings from -"Salome"? Strauss confessed that from the first the pious Joseph bored -him, "and I have difficulty in finding music for whatever bores me" -("was mich mopst"). To "his dear da Ponte", as he came to call -Hofmannsthal, he gave hope and said frankly that though the virtuous -Biblical youth tried his patience, in the end some "holy" strain might -perhaps occur to him. The present writer has always felt that the -_Josefslegende_ is a far too maligned work and that it would repay a -conductor to disentomb the grossly slandered score, which when properly -presented is striking "theatre". - -On October 28, 1915, there was heard in Berlin, under the composer's -direction, the first symphony (in contradiction to "tone poem") Richard -Strauss had written since 1886. Like _Aus Italien_ it was again -outspokenly pictorial. The composer himself wrote titles into the -divisions of the score (which he is said to have begun to sketch in -1911, though the music was set down to the final double bar four years -later). Some spoke of the _Alpensymphonie_ as a work which "a child -could understand". And the various scenic divisions of this Alpine -panorama, distended as it undoubtedly is, can be described as plainly -pictorial. The orchestra depicts successively "Night", "Sunrise", the -"Ascent", "Entrance into the Forest", "Wandering besides the Brook", "At -the Waterfall", "Apparition", "On Flowery Meadows", "On the Alm", "Lost -in the Thicket", "On the Glacier", "Dangerous Moment", "On the Summit", -"Mists Rise", "The Sun is gradually hidden", "Elegy", "Calm before the -Storm", "Thunderstorm", "The Descent", "Sunset", "Night". - -On account of its length the "Alpine Symphony" has never been a favorite -among Strauss's achievements of tone painting. Indeed, it may be -questioned whether its sunrise scene can be compared for suggestiveness -and purely musical thrill to the glorious opening picture of _Also -Sprach Zarathustra_. - - * * * - -Strauss's symphonic excursion in the Alps was succeeded by a return to -opera. Between 1914 and 1917 (which is to say during the most poignant -years of the First War) he busied himself with a work which was to -become a child of sorrow to him but which to a number of his staunchest -worshippers often passes as one of his very finest achievements--_Die -Frau ohne Schatten_ (_The Woman Without a Shadow_), first performed -under Frank Schalk in Vienna, October 10, 1919. For all the enthusiasm -it evokes in some of the inner Straussian circles this opera, which -combines length, breadth and thickness, is a real problem. The writer of -these lines, who has been exposed to the work fully half a dozen times -always with a firm resolve to enjoy it, has never succeeded in his -ambition. Though Strauss and Hofmannsthal discussed the plans for the -piece in 1912 and once more in 1914 the first act was not finished till -that year; and war held up the completion of the opera three years more. - -It has been maintained that in _Die Frau ohne Schatten_ marks "the -combination of a recitative style with the forms of the older opera" and -that in it Strauss has yielded to a mystical tendency. Willy Brandl -claims that Hofmannsthal's libretto attracted the composer and -stimulated him "precisely because of its obscurity"; that he saw in it a -series of problems to be "clarified, not to say unveiled, in their -complexities precisely through the agency of music." The question of -motherhood lies at the root of the opera. Hofmannsthal saw in his poem a -"kind of continuation of _The Magic Flute_. On one hand we have the -superterrestrial worlds, on another the realistic scenes of the human -world bound together by the demonic figure of the Nurse. And a new -element is to be sensed in the score--the powerful, hymn-like character -of the music overpoweringly disclosed in the music, a new feature in -Strauss's compositions." - -It may be questioned whether Strauss was truly content with the -bloodless symbolism which fills _The Woman Without a Shadow_. In any -case at this juncture he began to long for something new. Somehow -Hofmannsthal did not at that moment appear to be reacting -sympathetically to the dramatic demands which just then seemed to be -filling Strauss's mind. He informed Hofmannsthal that he longed for -something to compose like Schnitzler's _Liebelei_ or Scribe's _Glass of -Water_. He asked for "characters inviting composition--characters like -the Marschallin, Ochs or Barak (in _Die Frau ohne Schatten_)." And so, -when Hofmannsthal did not "respond" promptly he took up the pen to work -out his own salvation. The consequence was _Intermezzo_, a domestic -comedy in one act with symphonic interludes. It was produced at the -Dresden Opera, November 4, 1924, under Fritz Busch. Two years before -that Strauss had presented in Vienna a two act Viennese ballet, -_Schlagobers_ (_Whipped Cream_) which can be dismissed as one of his -outspoken failures. As for _Intermezzo_ it had biographical vibrations -in that it pictured a domestic episode in Strauss's own experiences. It -had to do with a conductor, _Robert Storch_, and thus Strauss could make -amusing stage use of the unmistakable initials "R.S." and make various -allusions to the game of skat, which had for years been a favorite -diversion of his. The music of _Intermezzo_ has never been acclaimed a -product of the greater Strauss. And yet Alfred Lorenz, famous for his -series of eviscerating studies of the structural problems of Wagner's -music dramas, has made it clear that the Wagnerian form problems are -likewise the principles which underlie such a relatively tenuous -Straussian score as _Intermezzo_. - -In spite of the dubious fortunes which were to dog the steps of an opera -like _The Woman Without a Shadow_ the composer once again allowed -himself to be seduced by a work of relatively similar character, -_Egyptian Helen_, a somewhat tortured mythical tale, based on a rather -far-fetched "magic" fiction by von Hofmannsthal, relating to a phase of -the Trojan war, in which Helen is shown as wholly innocent of the -ancient struggle. Magic befuddlements, potions capable of changing the -characteristics of people, draughts which rob this or that personage of -his memory, an "omniscient shell" which launches oracular pronouncements -and a good deal more of the sort lend a singular character to the -strange fantasy, in which some have chosen to discern a kind of take-off -on the various drinks of forgetfulness and such in _Tristan_ and -_Goetterdaemmerung_. _Egyptian Helen_ is the only sample of this strange -stage of the Strauss who was reaching the frontiers of old age which -American music lovers had the opportunity to know. It would be excessive -to claim that, either in Europe or in the western hemisphere, the work -was a noticeable addition to the enduring accomplishments of the master. -More than one began to obtain the impression that, for all the splendors -of his technic Strauss seemed to be going to seed. - - * * * - -In the summer of 1929 Hofmannsthal suddenly died. Some time before he -had written a short novel, _Lucidor_, about an impoverished family with -two marriageable daughters for whom an attempt is made to secure wealthy -husbands. To facilitate the marital stratagem one of the daughters is -dressed in boy's clothes. The disguised girl falls in love with a suitor -of her sister, Arabella, to whom one Mandryka, a romantic Balkan youth -of great wealth, pays court. The period is the year 1860, the scene -Vienna. - -Inevitably, _Arabella_ turned out to be something of a throwback into -the scene, if not the glamorous period or milieu, of _Der -Rosenkavalier_. Almost inevitably, the lyric comedy--the final product -of the Strauss-Hofmannsthal partnership--is filled with scenes, -characters and analogies to the more famous work. In truth, _Arabella_ -is a kind of little sister of _Rosenkavalier_. At the same time the -texture of the score and the character of the orchestral treatment has a -transparency and a delicate charm which Strauss rarely equalled, even if -the melodic invention and the instrumentation suggest a kind of chamber -music on a large scale. As in _Ariadne auf Naxos_ the composer does not -hesitate to make use of a florid soprano to introduce scintillating -samples of ornate vocalism. One feels, however, that _Arabella_ is a -semi-finished product. The second half of the work does not sustain the -level of the first. Many things might have been worked out more expertly -if the librettist had been spared to supervise work, which as things -stand is far from a really satisfactory or unified piece. But the score -contains some of the older Strauss's most enamoring lyric pages and it -is easy to feel that his heart was in the better portions of the opera. -The score of _Arabella_ benefits by the introduction of folk-songs -influence--in this instance of a number of South Slavic melodies, which -are among its genuine treasures. - -Lacking his faithful Hofmannsthal Strauss turned to Stefan Zweig, who -had made for him an operatic adaptation of Ben Jonson's play, "Epicoene, -or The Silent Woman". On June 24, 1935, it was produced under Karl Boehm -at the Dresden Opera. At once trouble arose. Hitler and the Nazis had -come into power and Zweig, as a Jew, was automatically an outcast. After -the very first performances the piece was forbidden, not to be revived -till after Hitler's end (and then in Munich and in Wiesbaden). It is -actually a question whether the temporary loss of _Die Schweigsame Frau_ -must be accounted a serious deprivation. _The Silent Woman_ is a rowdy, -cruel farce about the tricks played on a wretched old man, unable to -endure noise and subjected to all manner of torments in order that he be -compelled to renounce a young woman, who to assure a lover a monetary -settlement, plays the shrew so successfully that the old man is only too -willing to pay any amount of his wealth to be rid of her. It is much -like the story of Donizetti's _Don Pasquale_ and the dramatic -consequences are to all intents the same. There is, in reality, nothing -serious or genuinely based on musical _inspiration_ in the opera, the -best features of which are certain set pieces (some rather adroitly -polyphonic) and a charmingly orchestrated overture described in the -score as a "potpourri". A tenderer note is struck only at the point -where, as evening falls, the old man drops off to sleep. - -As librettist for his next two operas, _Friedenstag_ and _Daphne_, -Strauss sought the aid of Joseph Gregor. The first named work (in one -act) was performed on July 7, 1938, in Munich, under Clemens Krauss. -Ironically enough this work that aimed to glorify the coming of peace -after conflict, was first performed with the political troubles which -heralded the outbreak of the Second World War, visibly shaping -themselves. _Daphne_, bucolic tragedy in a single act, also from the pen -of Gregor, was heard in Dresden, October 15, 1938. And Gregor, too, -supplied the aging composer, with the book of _Die Liebe der Danae_, a -"merry mythological tale" in three acts. To date its sole production to -date seems to have been in Salzburg, as a "dress rehearsal", August 16, -1944. - -Strauss's last opera (produced under Clemens Krauss in Munich on October -28, 1942), was _Capriccio_, "a conversation piece for music", in one -act. Krauss and the composer collaborating on the book. The -"conversation" is a discussion of certain aesthetic problems underlying -the musical treatment of operatic texts. It was the final work of -operatic character Strauss was to attempt. This did not mean, however, -that he had written his last score. Far from it! At 81 he was to -complete several, the real value of which may be left to the judgment of -posterity. They include some songs, a duet-concertino for clarinet and -bassoon with strings, a concerto for oboe and orchestra, a still -unperformed concert fragment for orchestra from the _Legend of Joseph_. -More important, unquestionably, is _Metamorphoses_, a "study for 23 solo -strings", first played in Zurich, January 25, 1946 under the direction -of Paul Sacher. This work, despite its length, is music of suave, -beautiful texture; a certain nobly nostalgic quality of farewell which -seems to sum up the composer's life work, with all its ups and downs. We -may allow it to go at this and to spare further enumeration of the -innumerable odds and ends he was to assemble from his boyhood to the -patriarchal age of more than 85 years; or even to allude to his gross -derangement of Mozart's "Idomeneo", done in 1930 at Munich. - -Having lived through a lively young manhood and endured the bitter -experience of two world wars Richard Strauss in the end performed the -miracle of actually dying of old age! One might almost have looked for -convulsions of nature, for signs and portents at his eventual passing. -But his going was to be accompanied by no such things. His death in -Garmisch, September 8, 1949, was brought about by the illnesses of the -flesh at more than four score and five. He died of a complication of -heart, liver and kidney troubles--and he died in his bed! A Heldenleben, -if you will! And a death and transfiguration played against the -loveliest conceivable background--an incomparable stage setting of -Alpine lakes and heights, with streams and gleaming summits furnishing a -glorious backdrop for his resting place! - - - COMPLETE LIST OF RECORDINGS - by - THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY - OF NEW YORK - - - COLUMBIA MASTERWORKS RECORDS - -The following records are available on Columbia "Lp" - - DIMITRI MITROPOULOS conducting - - Concerto For Piano And Orchestra (Khachaturian). With Oscar Levant - (piano). - Concerto In D Minor For Three Pianos And Strings (Bach). With Robert, - Gaby, and Jean Casadesus pianos). - Concerto No. 1 In A Minor For 'Cello And Orchestra (Saint-Saens). With - Leonard Rose ('cello). - Concerto No. 3 In B Minor, Op. 61 (Saint-Saens). With Zino - Francescatti (violin). - Danse Macabre, Op. 40 (Saint-Saens).[*] - Danse Macabre, Op. 40 (Saint-Saens).[*] - Erwartung (Schoenberg). - Mer, La (Debussy). - Overture And Allegro (Couperin-Milhaud). - Petrouchka (A Burlesque in Four Scenes) (Stravinsky). - Philharmonic Waltzes (Gould). - Procession Nocturne, La, Op. 6 (Rabaud). - Rouet d'Omphale, Le, Op. 31 (Saint-Saens).[*] - Rouet d'Omphale, Le, Op. 31 (Saint-Saens).[*] - Schelomo--Hebraic Rhapsodie For 'Cello And Orchestra (Block). With - Leonard Rose ('cello). - Symphonic Allegro (Travis). - Symphonic Elegy For String Orchestra (Krenek). - Symphony No. 2 (Sessions). - Wozzeck (Berg). With Mack Harrell, Eileen Farrell, Frederick Jagel and - Others. - - BRUNO WALTER conducting - - Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80 (Brahms). - Concerto In C. Major For Violin, 'Cello, Piano And Orchestra, Op. 56 - ("Triple") (Beethoven). With John Corigliano (violin), Leonard - Rose ('cello), Walter Hendl (piano). - Concerto In D Major For Violin And Orchestra, Op. 61 (Beethoven). With - Joseph Szigeti (violin). - Concerto In E Minor For Violin And Orchestra, Op. 64 (Mendelssohn). - With Nathan Milstein (violin). - Concerto No. 5 In E-Flat Major For Piano And Orchestra, Op. 73 - ("Emperor") (Beethoven). With Rudolf Serkin. - Hungarian Dance No. 1 In G Minor (Brahms). (See: Hungarian Dances). - Hungarian Dance No. 3 In F Major (Brahms). (See: Hungarian Dances). - Hungarian Dance No. 10 In F Major (Brahms). (See: Hungarian Dances). - Hungarian Dance No. 17 In F-Sharp Minor (Brahms). (See: Hungarian - Dances). - Hungarian Dances (Brahms). - Moldau, The (Vltava) (Smetana). - Oberon--Overture (Weber). - Song Of Destiny, Op. 54 (Schicksalslied) (Brahms). (See: Symphony No. - 9 In D Minor (Beethoven). - Symphony In C Major (B. & H. No. 7) (Schubert). - Symphony No. 1 In C Major, Op. 21 (Beethoven). - Symphony No. 3 In E-Flat Major, Op. 55 ("Eroica") (Beethoven). - Symphony No. 3 In E-Flat Major, Op. 97 ("Rhenish") (Schumann). - Symphony No. 4 In E Minor, Op. 98 (Brahms). - Symphony No. 4 In G Major (Mahler). With Desi Halban (Soprano). - Symphony No. 4 In G Major, Op. 88 (Dvorak). - Symphony No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67 (Beethoven). - Symphony No. 7 In A Major, Op. 92 (Beethoven). - Symphony No. 8 In F Major (Beethoven). - Symphony No. 9 In D Minor, Op. 125 ("Choral") (Beethoven). With Irma - Gonzalez (soprano), Elena Nikolaidi (contralto), Raoul Jobin - (tenor), Mack Harrell (baritone) and The Westminster Choir (John - Finley Williamson, Cond.). - Symphony No. 41 In C Major (K. 551) ("Jupiter") (Mozart). - Vltava ("The Moldau") (Smetana). - - LEOPOLD STOKOWSKI conducting - - Ascension, L' (Messiaen). - Billy The Kid (Copland). - Francesca Da Rimini, Op. 32 (Tchaikovsky). - Goetterdaemmerung, Die--Siegfried's Rhine Journey and Siegfried's - Funeral Music (Wagner). - Gurrelieder: Lied Der Waldtaube (Schoenberg). With Martha Lipton - (Mezzo-soprano). - Masquerade Suite (Khachaturian). - Rienzi--Overture (Wagner). - Romeo And Juliet--Overture--Fantasia (Tchaikovsky). - Symphony No. 6 In E Minor (Vaughan Williams). - White Peacock, The, Op. 7, No. 1 (Griffes). - Wotan's Farewell And Magic Fire Music (from "Die Walkuere"--Act III) - (Wagner). - - GEORGE SZELL conducting - - Freischuetz, Der--Overture (Weber). - From Bohemia's Fields And Groves (Smetana). - Midsummer Night's Dream, A (Incidental Music) (Mendelssohn). - Moldau, The (Smetana). - - EFREM KURTZ conducting - - Age Of Gold, The--Polka (Shostakovich). (See: Russian Music). - Comedians, The, Op. 26 (Kabalevsky). - Concerto In A Minor For Piano And Orchestra, Op. 16 (Grieg). With - Oscar Levant (piano). - Concerto No. 2 In D Minor For Violin And Orchestra, Op. 22 - (Wieniawski). With Isaac Stern (violin). - Eugen Onegin--Entr'Acte And Waltz (Tchaikovsky). (See: Russian Music). - Flight Of The Bumble Bee, The (Rimsky-Korsakov). (See: Russian Music). - Gayne--Ballet Suite No. 1 (Khachaturian).[*] - Gayne--Ballet Suite No. 2 (Khachaturian).[*] - Life Of The Czar--Mazurka (Glinka). (See: Russian Music). - Mlle. Angot Suite (Lecocq). - March, Op. 99 (Prokofiev). (See: Russian Music). - Monts d'Or Suite, Les--Waltz (Shostakovitch). (See: Russian Music). - Russian Music. - Sabre Dance (Khachaturian). (See: Gayne-Ballet Suite No. 1).[*] - Sylphides, Les--Ballet (Chopin).[*] - Symphony No. 9, Op. 70 (Shostakovitch). - Uirapuru (A Symphonic Poem) (Villa-Lobos). - - CHARLES MUNCH conducting - - Concerto No. 21 In C Major For Piano And Orchestra (K. 467) (Mozart). - With Robert Casadesus (piano). - Symphony No. 3 In C Minor, Op. 78 (With Organ) (Saint-Saens). With E. - Nies-Berger (organ). - Symphony On A French Mountain Air For Orchestra And Piano, Op. 25 - (d'Indy). With Robert Casadesus (piano). - - ARTUR RODZINSKI conducting - - American In Paris, An (Gershwin). - Arabian Dance (Tchaikovsky). (See: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a).[**] - Bridal Chamber Scene (from "Lohengrin") (Wagner). With Helen Traubel - (soprano) Kurt Baum (tenor). - Chinese Dance (Tchaikovsky). (See: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a).[**] - Concerto No. 4 In C Minor For Piano And Orchestra, Op. 44 - (Saint-Saens). With Robert Casadesus (piano). - Dance Of The Reed-Pipes (Tchaikovsky). (See: Nutcracker Suite, Op. - 71a).[**] - Dance Of The Sugar-Plum Fairy (Tchaikovsky). (See: Nutcracker Suite, - Op. 71a).[**] - Escales (Ports Of Call) (Ibert). - Jubilee (Gould). (See: Spirituals For Orchestra). - Little Bit Of Sin, A (Gould). (See: Spirituals For Orchestra). - Lincoln Portrait, A (Copland). With Kenneth Spencer (narrator). - March (Tchaikovsky). (See: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a). - Mephisto Waltz (Liszt).[**] - Miniature Overture (Tchaikovsky). (See: Nutcracker Suite, Op. - 71a).[**] - Mozartiana (Suite No. 4 In G Major, Op. 61) (Tchaikovsky). - Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a (Tchaikovsky).[**] - Pictures At An Exhibition (Moussorgsky). - Proclamation (Gould). (See: Spirituals For Orchestra). - Protest (Gould). (See: Spirituals For Orchestra). - Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1 In A Major, Op. 11 (Enesco). - Russian Dance (Tchaikovsky). (See: Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71a).[**] - Sermon (Gould). (See: Spirituals For Orchestra). - Siegfried Idyll (Wagner). - Spirituals For Orchestra (Gould). - Symphony No. 1 In C Minor, Op. 68 (Brahms). - Symphony No. 2 In D Major, Op. 73 (Brahms). - Symphony No. 5, Op. 100 (Prokofiev). - Walkuere, Die--Act III (Complete) (Wagner). With Helen Traubel, Herbert - Janssen. - Waltz Of The Flowers (Tchaikovsky). (See: Nutcracker Suite, Op. - 71a).[**] - - IGOR STRAVINSKY conducting - - Circus Polka (Stravinsky). (See: "Meet The Composer"--Igor - Stravinsky). - Firebird Suite (New augmented version) (Stravinsky). - Fireworks, Op. 4 (Stravinsky). (See: "Meet The Composer"--Igor - Stravinsky). - Norwegian Moods (Stravinsky). (See: "Meet The Composer"--Igor - Stravinsky). - Ode (Stravinsky). (See: "Meet The Composer"--Igor Stravinsky). - Petrouchka, Suite From (Stravinsky). - Sacre Du Printemps, Le (Stravinsky). - Scenes De Ballet (Stravinsky). - Symphony In Three Movements (Stravinsky). - - SIR JOHN BARBAROLLI conducting - - Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80 (Brahms). - Concerto No. 1 In G Minor For Violin And Orchestra, Op. 26 (Bruch). - With Nathan Milstein (violin). - Concerto No. 27 In B-Flat Major For Piano And Orchestra (K. 595) - (Mozart). With Robert Casadesus (piano). - Theme And Variations (from Suite No. 3 In G Major, Op. 55) - (Tchaikovsky). - - SIR THOMAS BEECHAM conducting - - Symphony No. 7 In C Major, Op. 105 (Sibelius). - - LEONARD BERNSTEIN conducting - - Age Of Anxiety, The (Symphony No. 2 For Piano And Orchestra) - (Bernstein). - - MORTON GOULD conducting - - Quickstep (Third Movement from Symphony No. 2--"On Marching Tunes") - (Gould). - - ANDRE KOSTELANETZ conducting - - Concerto In F For Piano And Orchestra (Gershwin). With Oscar Levant - (piano). - - DARIUS MILHAUD conducting - - Suite Francaise (Milhaud). - - [**]Also available on 45 rpm. - [*]Also available on 78 rpm. - - - VICTOR RECORDS - - ARTURO TOSCANINI conducting - - Beethoven--Symphony No. 7 in A major - Brahms--Variations on a Theme by Haydn - Dukas--The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Gluck--Orfeo ed Euridice--Dance of the Spirits - Haydn--Symphony No. 4 in D major (The Clock) - Mendelssohn--Midsummer Night's Dream--Scherzo - Mozart--Symphony in D major (K. 385) - Rossini--Barber of Seville--Overture - Rossini--Semiramide--Overture - Rossini--Italians in Algiers--Overture - Verdi--Traviata--Preludes to Acts I and II - Wagner--Excerpts--Lohengrin--Die Goetterdaemmerung--Siegfried Idyll - - SIR JOHN BARBAROLLI conducting - - Debussy--Iberia (Images. Set 3, No. 2) - Purcell--Suite for Strings with Four Horns, Two Flutes, English Horn - Respighi--Fountains of Rome - Respighi--Old Dances and Airs (Special recording for members of the - Philharmonic-Symphony League of New York) - Schubert--Symphony No. 4 in C minor (Tragic) - Schumann--Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D minor (with Yehudi - Menuhin, violin) - Tschaikowsky--Francesca da Rimini--Fantasia - - WILLEM MENGELBERG conducting - - J. C. Bach--Arr. Stein--Sinfonia in B-flat major - J. S. Bach--Arr. Mahler--Air for G string (from Suite for Orchestra) - Beethoven--Egmont Overture - Handel--Alcina Suite - Mendelssohn--War March of the Priests (from Athalia) - Meyerbeer--Prophete--Coronation March - Saint-Saens--Rouet d'Omphale (Omphale's Spinning Wheel) - Schelling--Victory Ball - Wagner--Flying Dutchman--Overture - Wagner--Siegfried--Forest Murmurs (Waldweben) - - - Special Booklets published for - RADIO MEMBERS - of - THE PHILHARMONIC-SYMPHONY SOCIETY - OF NEW YORK - - POCKET-MANUAL of Musical Terms, Edited by Dr. Th. Baker (G. - Schirmer's) - BEETHOVEN and his Nine Symphonies by Pitts Sanborn - BRAHMS and some of his Works by Pitts Sanborn - MOZART and some Masterpieces by Herbert F. Peyser - WAGNER and his Music-Dramas by Robert Bagar - TSCHAIKOWSKY and his Orchestral Music by Louis Biancolli - JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH and a few of his major works by Herbert F. - Peyser - SCHUBERT and his work by Herbert F. Peyser - *MENDELSSOHN and certain MASTERWORKS by Herbert F. Peyser - ROBERT SCHUMANN--Tone-Poet, Prophet and Critic by Herbert F. Peyser - *HECTOR BERLIOZ--A Romantic Tragedy by Herbert F. Peyser - *JOSEPH HAYDN--Servant and Master by Herbert F. Peyser - GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL by Herbert F. Peyser - -These booklets are available to Radio Members at 25c each while the -supply lasts except those indicated by asterisk. - - - _Great Performances by the_ - Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York - _on Columbia 33-1/3_ (Lp) _Records_ - - DIMITRI MITROPOULOS conducting - Berg: Wozzeck. Complete Opera with Mack Harrell, Eileen Farrell and - others. Set SL-118 - Debussy: La Mer. ML 4434 - Saint-Saens: Concerto No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 61. With Zino - Francescatti, Violin. ML 4315 - Stravinsky: Petrouchka. ML 4438 - - BRUNO WALTER conducting - Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55. ("Eroica"). ML 4228 - Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98. ML 4472 - - GEORGE SZELL conducting - Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream--Overture and Incidental Music. - ML 4498 - Smetana: The Moldau; From Bohemia's Fields and Groves. ML 2177 - - - Columbia (Lp) Records - - First, Finest, Foremost in Recorded Music - - "Columbia", "Masterworks", (Lp) and (_()_) Trade Marks Reg. U. S. Pat. - Off. Marcas Registradas Printed in U. S. A. - - - - - Transcriber's Notes - - ---A few palpable typos were silently corrected; unusual transliterations - of names or musical terms were retained. - ---Copyright notice is from the printed exemplar. (U.S. copyright was not - renewed: this ebook is in the public domain.) - ---Columbia trademarks in the discography are represented with "ASCII - art" approximations. - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Richard Strauss, by Herbert F. 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