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STRAUSS, RICHARD (1864– )

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Originally appearing in Volume V25, Page 1004 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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STRAUSS, See also:RICHARD (1864– ) , See also:German composer, was See also:born at See also:Munich on the 11th of See also:June 1864, the son of. See also:Franz Strauss, an eminent hornist. To some extent a See also:prodigy, Strauss was something of a pianist at four, a composer at six, and at ten he was already seriously studying See also:music under F. W. See also:Meyer, the Munich Hofkapellmeister. Soon the result of this study began to make itself apparent. Singers sang Strauss's songs; the See also:Walter Quartet played his Quartet in A (op. 2); See also:Hermann See also:Levi performed his D See also:minor See also:Symphony—a See also:work that does not figure in the composer's See also:list; and Billow took the composer under his wing and introduced his See also:early See also:Serenade for See also:wind See also:instruments to the See also:Meiningen public. For obvious reasons Strauss had not yet found himself. He had passed through the gymnasium and the university, and his music studies had been thorough. But all this had made of - the youth merely an excellent technical musician, who in his Eight Songs (op. so) and in his See also:Pianoforte Quartet (op. 13) showed how strongly he was influenced by predecessors, See also:Liszt in the one See also:case, Mendelssohn in the other.

Billow's efforts to kindle in Strauss something of the See also:

fire of his own See also:enthusiasm for See also:Brahms's work ultimately proved fruitless. But to Billow, and even more to See also:Alexander See also:Ritter, Strauss owed the awakening in his own mind of the See also:interest in the See also:modern development of music that eventually in its ripeness placed Strauss at the very See also:top of the composers' See also:tree of his See also:time. - In 1885 Strauss succeeded Billow as conductor of the Meiningen See also:orchestra, but the See also:appointment was held only for a few months, since in See also:April of this See also:year Strauss resigned his See also:post in See also:order to travel in See also:Italy, and on his return in the early autumn,he became 3rd conductor of the Munich See also:Opera under Hermann Levi. Four years later he was installed in See also:Weimar as Hofkapellmeister, but once again he held his post only for a brief See also:period, for in 1894, the year of his See also:marriage to Pauline de Ahna, the eminent See also:singer, he was promoted to be 1st conductor at Munich. Between these various appointments and that of Hofkapellmeister in See also:Berlin (1899) Strauss travelled considerably in the near See also:East and over See also:Europe, now in See also:search of See also:health, anon in propagandism. His first professional visit to See also:London was in 1897, and laid the See also:foundation of a See also:local See also:English cult that. culminated six years later in a Strauss festival. From that time Strauss's path See also:lay in pleasant places. He frequently returned to London, notably to conduct a performance of Elektra, in Beecham' See also:season at Covent See also:Garden in the See also:spring. of 1910, and a See also:part of a See also:concert at See also:Queen's See also:Hall, when he achieved a genuine See also:triumph by his conducting of See also:Mozart's music. Of the early period of Strauss the composer there is little of importance to be said. His early See also:works were neither better nor worse than those of scores of talented students of an advanced skill in matters of technique. Indeed it has often been said, with some show of authority, that the ultimate development of Strauss is seen to any appreciable extent first in the symphonic poem See also:Macbeth (op. 23).

Here, in spite of the earlier See also:

Don Juan (op. z0), Strauss is himself, thematically and orchestrally, for the first time, for Aus Italien (op. 16) is a comparatively poor and quite unrepresentative effusion apart altogether from the faux as contained in it by the mistaking of a popular See also:song composed in St See also:John's See also:Wood, London, for a Neapolitan folk-song. A year only divides Macbeth (1887) from Don Juan (1888)—" Tondramen ohne Worte," as they have been called. But there is an See also:age between them and See also:Tod and Verklarung (1889)—the See also:bridge from one part to the other and the opening of the second See also:section of which are amongst Strauss's most glorious inspirations. Between the last-named work and Till Eulenspiegels lustigen Streiche (1894), Strauss's first opera, See also:Guntram finds See also:place (first performance, Weimar, 1894), the latter a work that in spite of much reclame for the composer failed to maintain a position upon the See also:stage. In Till See also:Eulenspiegel is to be found a sense of fun that is worthy of See also:note (as of emulation), and it is perhaps See also:worth recording that no more noteworthy example of the See also:Rondo See also:form exists in modern music, while its approximate successor, Don Quixote (1897), is an absolutely outstanding example of the Variation form. Further, Strauss reached in Don Quixote his See also:zenith as a musical realist. In between there occurred the Nietzschean poem Also sprach Zarathustra (1895), which stirred up more temporary strife than any of its predecessors, if not so much perhaps as was engineered later on by the See also:production of Ein Heldenleben (1898), or by the comparatively ingenuous See also:Symphonia domestics (1904). For various reasons these compositions roused the somewhat sleepy academics of musical Europe from their lethargy. They revived, with the usual negative results, the See also:ancient fight as to the See also:legitimacy or otherwise of See also:programme music. But though performances were comparatively rare in See also:England up to the See also:middle of 1910, those that had occurred proved undoubtedly attractive, while their rareness might quite reasonably be attributed to the very large fees demanded for their performance. Up to 1910 Strauss had composed four operas.

Of these, Guntram was on frankly Wagnerian lines. Feuersnot, on the other See also:

hand, a satirical, purely Munich work—a See also:page out of the Munich See also:annals, as it were, so closely is it identified with the Bavarian See also:capital in its musical and See also:personal reference, though produced at See also:Dresden in 1901, remained sufficiently alive to have merited performance at His See also:Majesty's See also:theatre, London, again under See also:Thomas Beecham's direction in See also:July 1910. The same enthusiastic musician had previously produced Elektra with immense yet equal success in London (Covent Garden)in the early spring of 1910. Perhaps none of these operas enjoyed the reclame of See also:Salome (Dresden 1905), which in England was originally barred by the See also:censor of plays, but was performed several times at Covent Garden under Thomas Beecham in the autumn of 1910. As a composer of songs Strauss enjoys the widest popularity in the conventional sense of the word. Many an example could be given from the See also:hundred and more of his " Lieder " of Strauss's lawful right to be considered a lineal descendant of the royal See also:line of German song writers. Some are transcendently beautiful. But this very fact has been thought to militate against his supreme greatness as a composer in the widest sense. The question, indeed, though in itself ridiculous, has been asked: which is the true Richard Strauss, the composer of the cacophonous Ein Heldenleben or of the exquisite See also:Morgen or Traum durch See also:die Dammerung? But by 1910 he had at any See also:rate won his place in the musical Walhalla. Whether the composer's name will survive by means of his many exquisite " Lieder," by means of his See also:satire and grim See also:humour, by means of his See also:realism or his See also:original classicism, remains to be seen. That his position is assured among the immortals is clear if only on See also:account of his See also:absolute See also:independence of thought and of expression, of his prodigious breadth of See also:artistic view and of his capacity to say his say in the musical See also:language of his own See also:day.

His heartiest detractors admit that Strauss has enlarged the means of musical expression even if they cavil at his somewhat realistic utterance on occasion. To put it no higher, he must See also:

rank as a zoth-See also:century See also:Berlioz with a vastly wider musical knowledge and equipment. (R. H.

End of Article: STRAUSS, RICHARD (1864– )

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