"Lenau's hero is a man who seeks the sensual ideal. He is constantly disappointed. He is repeatedly disgusted with himself, men and women, and the world; and when at last he fights a duel with Don Pedro, the avenging son of the Grand Commander, he throws away his sword and lets his adversary kill him.
"'Mein Todfeind ist in meine Faust gegeben;
Doch dies auch langweilt, wie das ganze Leben.'
"('My deadly foe is in my power; but this, too, bores me, as does life itself.')"
Of the tragic end of the Don's insatiable experimenting—as Strauss has turned it into music—he says:
"Till the end the mood grows wilder and wilder. There is no longer time for regret, and soon there will be no time for longing. It is the Carnival, and Don Juan drinks deep of wine and love.... Surrounded by women, overcome by wine, he rages in passion, and at last falls unconscious.... Gradually he comes to his senses, the themes of the apparitions, rhythmically disguised as in fantastic dress, pass like sleep-chasings through his brain, and then there is the motive of 'Disgust.' Some find in the next episode the thought of the cemetery, with Don Juan's reflections and his invitation to the Statue. Here the jaded man finds solace in bitter reflection. At the feast, surrounded by gay company, there is a faint awakening of longing, but he exclaims:
"'The fire of my blood has now burned out.'
"Then comes the duel, with the death scene. The theme of 'Disgust' now dominates. There is a tremendous orchestral crash; there is long and eloquent silence. A pianissimo chord in A minor is cut into by a piercingly dissonant trumpet F, and then there is a last sigh, a mourning dissonance and resolution (trombones) to E minor.
"'Exhausted is the fuel,
And on the hearth the cold is fiercely cruel.'"
"MACBETH," TONE-POEM: Op. 23
Macbeth, Tondichtung für grosses Orchestrer (nach Shakespeare's drama), was composed in 1887. It is actually, in date of composition, the first of Strauss's orchestral tone-poems, though "Don Juan" (see the preceding pages), composed in 1888, bears an earlier opus number—20.
Beyond the title and the acknowledgment—"after Shakespeare's drama"—the score bears no programme or explanation save the word "Macbeth" printed over an imperious phrase for violins, horn, and wood-wind near the beginning, and a quotation from the play, in German, placed above a passage on page 11 of the orchestral score, where flutes and clarinets, pianissimo, give out, over muted [143] horns and strings tremolo, a phrase whose expression is marked appassionata, molto rubato. [144] The quotation is from Lady Macbeth's speech in Act I., Scene V.: