Should any singers think of singing this song, while the nineteenth century is still in existence, the composer would advise them to transpose it from this point, a half-tone lower (i.e. into E flat), so that the composition may thus end in the key in which it began.
Fuersnot, a Singgedicht in one act, book by Ernst von Wolzogen, music by Richard Strauss, was produced at the Royal Opera House, Dresden, November 21, 1901. The libretto is founded on a Netherland story, entitled, The Fire Famine at Oudenaerde. Emil Paur introduced several excerpts, sonorous, brilliant music, at a Philharmonic concert.
When questioned about his future plans Strauss replied: “I have made a musical setting to Uhland’s Taillefer for chorus, soli, and full orchestra. I am surprised that musicians have not availed themselves of this fresh, magnificent poem before—at least I have heard of no setting. Altogether one admires Uhland too little these days. When I was younger I neglected reading him very much; but now I find one beauty after another in his writing. I also have material for two symphonic poems, but don’t know which one I shall use—if indeed I finish any—now. It usually takes two years before a composition begins to assume form with me. At first there comes to me an idea—a theme. This rests with me for months; I think of other things and busy myself with everything but it; but the idea is fermenting of its own accord. Sometimes I bring it to mind, or play the theme on the piano, just to see how far it has progressed—and finally it is ready for use. You see, therein lies the real art of creation—to know exactly when an idea is ripe, when one can use, must use it. More and more I cling to the belief that we conscious people have no control over our creative power. For instance, I slave over a melody and encounter an obstacle which I cannot surmount, however I try. This during the course of an evening; but the next morning the difficulty has surrendered itself, just as though my creative forces had toiled at it over night. Several years ago I told a friend that I meant to compose a symphonic poem, Spring. He repeated my remark, and at the making up of the next music festival programme my Spring was placed and I was asked to conduct it! The work is not even composed yet, despite the great number of themes and sketches I have for it. In fact, I don’t know when I will compose it—if at all. Sometimes a theme occurs first to me, and I find the poetic mate to it later; but at others the poetic idea begins to take on musical form. I may even compose an opera soon. A young Vienna poet has suggested a libretto which appeals to me very much. A libretto of my own is also receiving some consideration from me.
“The old metre of poetry, the iambic and trochiac rhythms—also the rhyme—are useless in music, because the latter has an entirely different rhythm, and this must necessarily destroy that of poetry when the two are joined. According to my opinion, the most available forms are the Nibelungen verses or a free prose. Why cannot music express philosophy? Metaphysics and music are sisters. Even in music one can express a view point, and if one wishes to approach the World Riddle, perhaps it can be done with the aid of music. Is not the third act of Tristan transcendental philosophy purely? Lastly, my next tone-poem will illustrate ‘a day in my family life.’ It will be partly lyrical, partly humorous—a triple fugue, the three subjects representing papa, mamma, and the baby!” This latter is the Sinfonia Domestica of which the first performance anywhere, was announced for March 9, 1904, at Carnegie Hall, New York City.
Jean Marnold, the acute critic of the Mercure de France, calls attention to the “melody of Strauss, which is frankly diatonic, the tonal character definitely determined.” This statement will be challenged by those who take the composer’s middle period as a criterion of his chromatic tendencies. But examine the later themes, and we are forced to agree with M. Marnold. Arthur Symons finds that Strauss is cerebral. He writes: “Strauss is what the French call un cérébral, which is by no means the same thing as a man of intellect. Un cérébral is a man who feels through his brain, in whom emotion transforms itself into idea, rather than in whom idea is transfigured by emotion. Strauss has written a Don Juan without sensuality, and it is in his lack of sensuality that I find the reason of his appeal. All modern music is full of sensuality, since Wagner first set the fevers of the flesh to music. In the music of Strauss the Germans have discovered the fever of the soul. And that is indeed what Strauss has tried to interpret.” W. J. Henderson is open to conviction. He wrote:—
“It is too soon for us to say that Strauss will influence the future. He may leave us nothing but certain purely mechanical improvements in orchestral technics. Even these will have their value. Yet all recent attempts at progress in music have been in the direction of more definite expression, and Strauss may be only a stepping-stone in an advance toward that blissful epoch whose hearers will display as much imagination as its composers, that transcendent condition in which genius understands genius.”
Edward E. Ziegler discerns that Richard Strauss is “a master of music mathematics and one who is composing music for the present. It is an easy evasion,” he adds, “to shift the responsibility for what the living generation cannot easily or will not willingly grasp and to proclaim that such intricate writing is for the future. But music has ever reflected life, and no other composer has so nearly approached a musical expression of our time as has Strauss. The febrile unrest, the neurotic striving of the hour, all have their musical equivalent in his greater compositions. Plying the stress of emphasis as Strauss does is characteristic of the present as is typical his use of the enormous orchestra. All life has become agitated by the exaggeration of the hour. It needed but a master like Strauss to express this truth in music.”
August Spanuth holds that “Richard Strauss may be a monstrous phenomenon, yet he embodies the domineering spirit of modern music. For more than two centuries composers have endeavored to vindicate the cause of programme-music, which the staunch old champions of ‘absolute music’ have fought from the outset. However, after the efforts of Berlioz and Liszt, Richard Strauss has succeeded in reversing the question, making it read thus: Is there a future left for instrumental music outside of the descriptive, pictorial, illustrative, suggestive, and philosophizing music of to-day?”
Ernest Newman, in a masterly article, concludes with this telling passage:—