III. And now the dying man dreams dreams and sees visions (meno mosso, ma sempre alla breve). The “Childhood” motive returns (G major) in freer form. There is again the joy of youth (oboes, harp, and, bound to this motive of “Hope” that made him smile before the struggle, the motive now played by solo viola). The fight of manhood with the world’s prizes is waged again (B major, full orchestra, fortissimo), waged fiercely. “Halt!” thunders in his ears, and trombones and kettledrums sound the dread and strangely rhythmed motive of “Death” (drums beaten with wooden drumsticks). There is contrapuntal elaboration of the “Life Struggle” and “Childhood” motives. The “Transfiguration” motive is heard in broader form. The chief “Death” motive and the feverish attack are again dominating features. Storm and fury of orchestra. There is a wild series of ascending fifths. Tam-tam and harp knell the soul’s departure.
IV. The “Transfiguration” theme is heard from the horns; strings repeat the “Childhood” motive. A crescendo leads to the full development of the “Transfiguration” theme (moderato, C major), “World deliverance, world transfiguration.”
The scoring is as follows: three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and bass tuba, kettledrums, tam-tam, two harps, and strings.
“TILL EULENSPIEGEL’S MERRY PRANKS, AFTER THE OLD-FASHIONED ROGUISH MANNER—IN RONDO FORM,” OP. 28
Till Eulenspiegel disputes with Don Juan the first position among the symphonic poems of Strauss. The opening of Thus Spake Zarathustra is colossal in its elemental grandeur; the death music in Don Quixote is incomparably beautiful; there are a few pages in A Hero’s Life that remind one of Beethoven at his best; the love music in the Domestic symphony is memorable; but Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan are continuously impressive, each in its way, and are free from the suspicion of effects made for the sake of effect, designed deliberately to make the bourgeois stare.
The story is medieval and Rabelaisian, and the music is quite as broad as the tale. Clear motives typify Till, who can be traced from beginning to end. He “bobs up” (no other term can describe it) through every kind of repression and persecution; he is saucy and insouciant; he is comically repentant when at the last he is hanged, and his last faint squeak is very mock-pathetic.
This hanging is a deviant from the old story in which Till evades his doom and cheats the executioner. For some time the reviewers were in doubt as to whether Strauss had given warrant for the execution—which shows the weak point of “programme music,” for no one ought to have had any doubts upon the subject after hearing the change of style from glibness to utter dejection at the end.
Till Eulenspiegel’s lustige Streiche, nach alter Schelmenweise—in Rondoform, für grosses Orchester gesetzt, von Richard Strauss, was produced at a Gürznich concert at Cologne, November 5, 1895. It was composed in 1894-95 at Munich, and the score was completed there, May 6, 1895. The score and parts were published in September, 1895.
There has been dispute concerning the proper translation of the phrase, nach alter Schelmenweise, in the title. Some, and Apthorp was one of them, translate it “after an old rogue’s tune.” Others will not have this at all, and prefer “after the old—or old-fashioned—roguish manner,” or, as Krehbiel suggested, “in the style of old-time waggery,” and this view is in all probability the sounder. It is hard to twist Schelmenweise into “rogue’s tune.” Schelmenstück, for instance, is “a knavish trick,” a “piece of roguery.” As Krehbiel well said: “The reference [Schelmenweise] goes, not to the thematic form of the phrase, but to its structure. This is indicated, not only by the grammatical form of the phrase but also by the parenthetical explanation: ‘in Rondoform.’ What connection exists between roguishness, or waggishness, and the rondo form it might be difficult to explain. The roguish wag in this case is Richard Strauss himself, who, besides putting the puzzle into his title, refused to provide the composition with even the smallest explanatory note which might have given a clue to its contents.” It seems to us that the puzzle in the title is largely imaginary. There is no need of attributing any intimate connection between “roguish manner” and “rondo form.”