It was like a man of great intellectual activity, such as Richard Strauss is, to select for musical illustration the Faust of modern literature—Nietzsche’s “Zarathustra.” The composer became interested in Nietzsche’s works in 1892, when he was writing his music-drama, “Guntram.” The full fruition of his study of this philosopher’s works is “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” But this is not an attempt to set Nietzsche to music, not an effort to express a system of philosophy through sound. It is rather the musical portrayal of a quest—a being longing to solve the problems of life, finding at the end of his varied pilgrimage that which he had left at the beginning, Nature deep and inscrutable.
Musically, the great fortissimo outburst in C major, which, at the beginning of the work, greets the seeker on the mountain-top with the glories of the sunrise, is the symbol of Nature. The seeker descends the mountain. He pursues the quest amid many surroundings, among all sorts and conditions of men. He experiences joy, passion, remorse. In wisdom, perchance, lies the final solution of the problem of life. But the 216 emptiness of “wisdom” is depicted by the composer with the keenest satire in a learned, yet dry, five-part fugue. The seeker’s varied experiences form as many divisions of the tone poem. There is even a waltz theme. Unending joy! Therein he may reach the end of his quest.
But hark! a sombre strophe, followed twelve times by the even fainter stroke of a bell! Then a theme winging its flight on the highest register of modern instrumentation, until it seems to rise over the orchestra and vanish into thin air. It is the soul of the seeker, his earthly quest ended; while the theme which greeted him at sunrise on the mountain-top resounds in the orchestral depths, the symbol of Nature, still mysterious, still inscrutable.
An Intellectual Force in Music.
Even this brief synopsis suggests that “Zarathustra” is planned on a large scale. It presupposes an intellectual grasp of the subject on the composer’s part. In its choice, in the selection and rejection of details and in outlining his scheme, Richard Strauss shows that he has thoroughly assimilated Nietzsche. But, at a certain point, the musician in Richard Strauss asserts himself above the litterateur. “Thus Spake Zarathustra” was not intended for a preachment, save indirectly. From what occurs during that vain quest, from the last deep mysterious chord of the Nature theme, let the listener draw his own conclusion. In the last analysis, “Thus Spake Zarathustra” is not a philosophical treatise, but a tone poem. In the last analysis, 217 Richard Strauss is not a philosopher, but a musician.
“A Hero’s Life” is another work of large plan. Like “Zarathustra,” it derives its importance as an art-work from its eloquence as a musical composition. With a musical work, no matter how intellectual or dramatic its foundation, its test ever will be its value as pure music. Richard Wagner’s theories would have fallen like a house of cards, had not his music been eloquent and beautiful. But as his music gained wonderfully in added eloquence and beauty by induction from its intellectual content, so does Strauss’s. The fact is, music is music, while philosophies come and go. Yesterday it was Schopenhauer; to-day it is Nietzsche; to-morrow it will be another. Doubtless, Wagner thought his “Ring” was Schopenhauer’s “Negation of the Will to Live” set to music. Possibly, Richard Strauss thought Nietzsche looked out between the bars of “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” In point of fact, neither Wagner nor Richard Strauss incorporated their favorite philosophers in their music. Wagner may have derived his inspiration from his reading of Schopenhauer, and Richard Strauss from Nietzsche, for one mind inspires another. But the real result, both in Wagner and Strauss, was great music.
This is made clear by Strauss’s “A Hero’s Life.” Like “Zarathustra,” it would be effective as music without a line of programmatic explanation. The latter simply adds to its effectiveness by giving it the further interest of “fiction” and ethical import. In “A Hero’s Life” we hear (and see, if you like) the hero himself, 218 his jealous adversaries, the woman whose love consoles him, the battle in which he wins his greatest worldly triumph, his mission of peace, the world’s indifference and the final flight of his soul toward the empyrean. All this is depicted musically with the greatest eloquence. The battlefield scene is a stupendous massing of orchestral forces. On the other hand, the amorous episode, entitled “The Hero’s Helpmate,” is impassioned and charming.
In the world’s indifference to the hero’s mission of peace, there is little doubt that Strauss was indulging in a retrospect of his own struggles for recognition. For here are heard numerous reminiscences of his earlier works—his tone poems, “Don Juan,” “Death and Transfiguration,” “Macbeth,” “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks,” “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” “Don Quixote”; his music-drama, “Guntram”; and his song, “Dream During Twilight.” These reminiscences give “A Hero’s Life” the same autobiographical interest as attaches to Wagner’s “Meistersinger.”
Tribute to Wagner.
Strauss pays a tribute to Wagner in the one-act opera, “Feuersnot” (“Fire Famine”). According to the old legend on which this Sing-gedicht (song-poem) is founded, a young maiden has offended her lover. But the lover being a magician, casts a spell over the town, causing the extinction of all fire, bringing cold and darkness upon the entire place, until the maiden relents and smiles again upon him, when the spell is lifted and the fires once more burn brightly. The 219 young lover, Kunrad, in rebuking the people of the city, says: