"Don Quixote,"
Düsseldorf.
May 26, 1899.
Richard Strauss is now beyond question the most prominent figure among the younger composers of Germany. He was born at Munich in 1864. At an early age he mastered the various arts of composition and produced works that showed originality and power. Among such early works may be mentioned a String Quartet produced in 1881, and a Symphony first heard in the following year. Within a few years he also composed a Sonata for 'cello, a Serenade for wind instruments, a Concerto for violin, a Concerto for horn, besides songs and pianoforte pieces. These early works show the influence of classical models, and in three cases—the Sonata for 'cello and the Concertos for violin and horn respectively—the influence of Mendelssohn. At a later period Richard Strauss became a disciple of the Wagner-Liszt school and adopted the Symphonic Poem as his principal medium of expression. His fine Sonata in E flat for pianoforte and violin marks the transition stage. In his later phase Strauss appears as a psychologist and an esprit fin. His study of Nietzsche's philosophy appears not only in his "Zarathustra," but in nearly all his "Symphonic Poems." The "Heldenleben" might quite well be labelled with the Nietzschian expression "Der Uebermensch." Strauss thus seems to stand to Nietzsche in something like the relation that Wagner bore to Schopenhauer, and it is a curious point that in each case the musician is found diverging somewhat violently from the taste of his philosophical master. These two philosophers—the only two that have taken a genuine interest in modern music—had both somewhat rudimentary musical taste, though good taste as far as it went. Schopenhauer's preference was for Rossini and Nietzsche's for Bizet, and even as Wagner's style differs toto cœlo from Rossini's, so do Strauss's incredible richness of imaginative detail and indifference to rhythmical charm stamp him as something very different from those "Halcyonian" composers whom Nietzsche loved. Strauss is not likely to become popular in England, but two or three of his larger orchestral works, and especially the "Heldenleben," would probably find favour with a section of the English public. To the mandarins and to the majority he is and must remain anathema.
On the third and last day of this Festival Strauss's "Don Quixote" was the work upon which public curiosity was chiefly concentrated. In these "Fantastic Variations" we find the composer once more adopting a style as frankly grotesque as in "Till Eulenspiegel." The long and important introduction stands in a relation to the rest of the work that, so far as I know, is unique. It is a preparation for the principal theme, successively emphasising all the different kinds of significance supposed to be contained in that theme. First we have a naïve, stilted, and pompous phrase suggesting Don Quixote's absorption in the romances of chivalry. Succeeding passages touch upon the hero's pose of gallantry and the great predominance of imagination over reason which leads him into grotesque adventures. The psychological method of the composer causes him to lay stress on the crisis forming the point de départ of Don Quixote's career—a vow of atonement for sins and follies. At last we get the theme in its complete form—a masterpiece of droll characterisation,—and immediately after it the prosaic jog-trot of Sancho Panza. In the first variation a musical element is introduced typifying Don Quixote's feminine ideal—Dulcinea of Toboso. It ends with the windmill incident. One hears the airy swing of the mill-sails, the furious approach of the knight, and his sudden overthrow. Variation No. 2 gives the meeting with the flock of sheep. In the third we have a colloquy between Don Quixote and Sancho, forming an elaborate movement. Next comes the quarrel with the pilgrims, and then the scene in the tavern where Don Quixote undergoes regular initiation into the order of knighthood by keeping guard over his armour all night. No. 6 represents the scene of the peasant woman mistaken for Dulcinea, and No. 7 the ride of the two companions on wooden horses at the fair. Nos. 8 and 9 are concerned with the enchanted boat and the priests mistaken for magicians. No. 10 gives the disastrous fight with the Knight of the Shining Moon. There is also a finale setting forth the reveries of Don Quixote in his old age, and, last of all, his death. Together with the purely grotesque elements are many touches of wonderful poetic beauty, among which may be mentioned the scene of Don Quixote's midnight watch and, above all, the concluding strain—a sigh of ineffable pathos. On the other hand, it may be urged against the encounter with the flock of sheep that such sounds do not really belong to the domain of music, but rather to that of farm-yard imitations. On the whole, "Don Quixote" strikes me as a less admirable work than the "Heldenleben," heard on the previous day. The chief feature in the interpretation on Tuesday was the superb rendering, by Professor Hugo Becker, of Frankfurt, of the violoncello solo which throughout the work is identified with the person of the titular hero.