"Zarathustra."
January 29, 1904.
"Also sprach Zarathustra" ("Thus spake Zarathustra") is the first work in Strauss's most advanced manner. It is scored for the following enormous orchestra:—One piccolo and three flutes; three oboes and one cor anglais; one clarinet in E flat, two clarinets in B flat, and one bass clarinet in B flat; three bassoons and one contrafagotto; six horns in F, four trumpets in C, three trombones, and two bass tubas; kettle drums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, and glockenspiel; a bell in E; organ, two harps, and the usual bow instruments; and the demands on the technique of the performers are as exceptional as the number of instruments employed. It is as striking an example of Dr. Richter's energy that he should not have shrunk from the task of interpreting so vast and bewildering a score, as it is of his openness of mind that at his age he should have cared to bring forward the most typically advanced and modern of compositions—for that we take Strauss's "Zarathustra" to be in respect both of subject and treatment. We doubt whether another living musician of anything like Dr. Richter's age possesses in the same degree that youthful elasticity which can do full justice to the works of a younger generation. Moreover, he is not in any special sense a Straussian. He simply knows, as everyone conversant with the musical affairs of the present day knows, that Strauss is a composer of very great and commanding talent, and he thinks that in such a musical centre as Manchester his more important works ought to be known. So, in spite of a rather discouraging attitude on the part of the public and an amount of extra trouble that can scarcely be reckoned up, he gives one of them from time to time. It is not Lancashire any more than it is London that, among British musical centres, has displayed the readiest appreciation of Strauss—the great and typical modern. It is the part of the country served by the Scottish Orchestra, where "Tod und Verklärung" has before now been chosen for performance at a plébiscite concert. This seems very natural, for "Tod und Verklärung" is the clearest, simplest, and least heterodox of Strauss's orchestral works, and much easier to understand at a first hearing than Beethoven's C minor Symphony. It has, in fact, been recognised as a classic nearly everywhere, though here it still lies under suspicion of being a mere piece of eccentricity. We can only hope that after hearing "Zarathustra"—which certainly is rather a large order—some of our conscientious objectors may reconsider their position. The extraordinary thing is that it was better received than the far more generally comprehensible "Tod und Verklärung." This was no doubt, in part, due to sheer astonishment, but also, we believe, to the perception that whatever else there may be in the work there is a certain grandeur of perception. It is scarcely possible to listen in a state of complete indifference to the opening tone-picture of sunrise, with its great booming nature ground-tone, that recalls the Introduction to Wagner's "Rheingold," and the ringing trumpet harmonies following the three notes of the soulless nature theme. The plan of the tone-poem that gradually unfolds is one of the clearest. It is on the same plan as the discourse of St. Francis on "La Joie Parfaite," quoted by Sabatier from the "Fioretti," where the holy man, the better to impress upon Brother Leo wherein perfect joy consists, first enumerates a series of things in which it does not consist, and then, having disposed of the erroneous opinions corresponding to various stages of the upward path towards true wisdom, tells us at last what perfect joy is. The wisdom of Zarathustra is, of course, very different from the wisdom of St. Francis, but his method of inculcating it is the same. He, too, has mortified the flesh with the "Hinterweltler" (perhaps "other-worldlings" is the nearest English equivalent), and thrown himself for a change into the vortex of exciting pleasures—the "Freuden und Leidenschaften" he calls them, as who should say the "fruitions and passions of youth." It is characteristic that he puts the religion first and the exciting pleasures afterwards. He also "did eagerly frequent doctor and saint and heard great argument," that experience being symbolised by Strauss's "Fugue of Science." But none of these things, he gives us to understand, by emphatic use of the "disgust" theme, is the pearl of great price, or perfect joy, or anything of the sort. The penultimate part of the tone-poem deals with the conversion of Zarathustra into a dancing philosopher—his learning of the great lesson that one must "get rid of heaviness"; and here, of course, the musician is very thoroughly in his element. Very remarkable and surprising is the conclusion. Strauss has declared that the whole composition is simply his homage to the genius of Nietzsche, but it is impossible to resist the impression that in the manner of the ending he has endeavoured to suggest an improvement on Nietzsche—and he might well be pleased with himself, and so a little overbearing, after producing that "Tanzlied" (a sort of waltz for demigods or "Uebermenschen"), which he has done much better than any other composer that ever lived could have done it. He ends with a night picture in B major against the final notes of which the persistent nature theme in C major once more reasserts itself as a pizzicato bass;—in words, "but you have left the riddle of the painful earth just as much unsolved as it was before, for all your wisdom." Whether that ending is more to the point than Nietzsche's own or not, it is really wonderful that musical notes can be made to speak so plainly, and even to say something quite important.