"Tod und Verklärung."
October 17, 1902.
It is difficult to make out the prevalent state of mind in this country in regard to Richard Strauss—Richard II., as he is often called in Germany. Of course the upholders of a turnip-headed orthodoxy will not hear of him, any more than they would hear of Richard I. a quarter of a century ago, and he seems to have an irritating effect on all critics, except a certain very small minority in whose temperament there is something giving them the key to some part, at any rate, of Strauss's genius. What irritates the critics is simply the difficulty of finding a formula for Strauss. He has the annoying impertinence not to fit into any of their pigeon-holes. He is enigmatic, Sphinx-like, a complex personality not to be conveniently catalogued. That complex personality we are not here proposing to analyse, but on one point we venture to state a definite opinion. Those who assert that Strauss is a mere eccentric will sooner or later find themselves in the wrong. He has in a few cases played tricks on the public, but he is nevertheless a master-composer, in the full and simple sense of those words—a master-composer just as Mozart was. In "Tod und Verklärung" we find him in a mood of absolute seriousness. The theme is a death-bed scene, the phantasmagoria of a sick brain during the last moments of earthly consciousness, the final struggle with death, and then a wonderful suggestion of reawakening to immortality. The composition is thus, as a German critic has pointed out, the counterpart of Elgar's "Gerontius," so far as the subject is concerned; but in no other respect have the two works any similarity. The qualities with which Strauss's name is most commonly associated—audacious and grotesque realism, gorgeous, intoxicating orchestral figuration and colouring—are here completely in abeyance. In the mood of the opening section there is kinship with the third act of "Tristan"—the same hush and oppression of the sick man's lair,—but not in the musical treatment, which with Strauss has much more reference to external detail (e.g., the ticking of the clock) than with Wagner. The introductory notes are full of weird power, and they lead on to some exquisitely pathetic "Seelenmalerei." In the ensuing agitato section any listener acquainted with other Symphonic Poems by the same composer—earlier or later—is likely to be surprised at his comparative moderation and restraint in depicting the terrors of the struggle with death. It cannot be denied that Strauss is greatly preoccupied with such ideas. He has set the very article of death to music on at least four different occasions ("Tod und Verklärung," "Don Juan," "Till," and "Don Quixote"). The hanging of "Till" is inconceivably drastic in its realism, and the last sigh of Don Quixote is the most unearthly thing in all music. Don Juan's death is purely macabre; but in "Tod und Verklärung" a certain suggestion of the macabre gives way to something very different—the suggestion of the soul rising to immortality; and thus is initiated the final section, dominated by the noble and beautiful "transfiguration" theme. Those of the composer's admirers who "always thought he was a heathen Chinee" may here find matter for searchings of heart. For the thing is too well done not to have been sincerely felt.
"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.
"Ein Heldenleben,"
Liverpool Orchestral Soc.
Feb. 8, 1904.