He is tall and slender, with kindly blue eyes, rather informal in manner. He has the air of a happy man even if he has received some of the harshest criticism from friends and foes that any composer has had from earliest times. His wife used to sing his songs in public. He is fond of games, especially the card game “skat” and like the true grandson of a brewer enjoys his glass of beer.
Strauss’s Contribution to Music
Among Strauss’ greatest works are his operas Electra, Salome and Der Rosenkavalier and his nine tone poems. Despite all the harsh things critics have said of him, Strauss has always maintained that, although he did not write in accepted forms, he felt that the form should always be suitable to the subject, for “as moods and ideas change so must forms.” This, Ernest Newman said in defence of Strauss, and it may be applied to all arts.
So Strauss is not formless but like Proteus, has many forms. Cecil Gray said, “he seems to have an irresistible itch to provoke the amazement and the horror of the multitude.” This is quite true, especially in Salome, Electra and Der Rosenkavalier in which opera he went back to Mozart form as a model. It seems incredible that a man who could write the noble songs that he has written should have chosen such unpleasant plots for his operas!
In Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) he was distinctly a follower of Liszt. His friend Alexander Ritter is said to have written the poem after the music.
At the time that it was first played, it caused so much comment that Strauss, like Browning, laughed at people for trying to “read” more into it than he wrote. Browning was asked whether he meant a certain thing in one of his poems, and his reply was something like this: “Madam, I never thought of it, but if you think it is there, I am more than glad to know it.”
His Don Juan is delightful, too, but his Til Eulenspiegel (1895) which tells of the mischievous pranks of Til, is one of the finest examples of humor in music and probably will outlive many works of this modern period, his own as well as others. He wrote it in the form of a classical Rondo, because he could picture Til’s ever recurring deviltry and exploits in this form. Poor Strauss was reviled for this daringly written music, too, yet this tone poem is an amazing piece of work and was given gloriously as a ballet in New York City a few years ago by Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet.
In Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra), Strauss uses the idée fixe or leit-motif. This is based on a prose poem of Nietzsche.
In Don Quixote he goes back to the form of the classical variation, for it is an ingenious way of showing the varying sides of the character of Don Quixote. Here he shows events and not ideas, a most definite story in tones. You can almost see the attack on the wind-mills and you can actually hear the sheep bleating, the church music of passing pilgrims, and the love tale of Dulcinea. In this piece, program music reaches its height.
In Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) (1898) Strauss frankly quotes from his musical works. He does not have to prove that he is the hero, for he admits it! When Strauss was asked what the poem meant, he said, “There is no need of a program, it is enough to know that there is a hero fighting his enemies.” In it, you can really hear the carping critics, his retorts, the triumphs and the defeats. It is very interesting and amazingly well written.