On a flyleaf of a score is printed the following excerpts from Nietzsche’s book, the first section of “Zarathustra’s Introductory Speech”:
“Having attained the age of thirty, Zarathustra left his home and the lake of his home and went into the mountains. There he rejoiced in his spirit and his loneliness, and for ten years did not grow weary of it. But at last his heart turned—one morning he got up with the dawn, stepped into the presence of the Sun and thus spake unto him: ‘Thou great star! What would be thy happiness, were it not for those on whom thou shinest? For ten years thou hast come up here to my cave. Thou wouldst have got sick of thy light and thy journey but for me, mine eagle and my serpent. But we waited for thee every morning and receiving from thee thine abundance, blessed thee for it. Lo! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that hath collected too much honey; I need hands reaching out for it. I would fain grant and distribute until the wise among men could once more enjoy their folly, and the poor once more their riches. For that end I must descend to the depth; as thou dost at even, when sinking behind the sea, thou givest light to the lower regions, thou resplendent star! I must, like thee, go down, as men say—men to whom I would descend. Then bless me, thou impassive eye, that canst look without envy even upon overmuch happiness. Bless the cup which is about to overflow, so that the water golden-flowing out of it may carry everywhere the reflection of thy rapture. Lo! this cup is about to empty itself again, and Zarathustra will once more become a man.’—Thus Zarathustra’s going down began.”
This prefatory note in Strauss’s tone poem is not a “programme” of the composition itself. It is merely an introduction. The sub-captions of the composer in the score indicate that the music after the short musical introduction begins where the quotation ends.
“The scene of Thus Spake Zarathustra,” says Dr. Tille, “is laid, as it were, outside of time and space, and certainly outside of countries and nations, outside of this age, and outside of the main condition of all that lives—the struggle for existence.... There appear cities and mobs, kings and scholars, poets and cripples, but outside of their realm there is a province which is Zarathustra’s own, where he lives in his cave amid the rocks, and whence he thrice goes to men to teach them his wisdom. This Nowhere and Nowhen, over which Nietzsche’s imagination is supreme, is a province of boundless individualism, in which a man of mark has free play, unfettered by the tastes and inclinations of the multitude.... Thus Spake Zarathustra is a kind of summary of the intellectual life of the nineteenth century, and it is on this fact that its principal significance rests. It unites in itself a number of mental movements which, in literature as well as in various sciences, have made themselves felt separately during the last hundred years, without going far beyond them. By bringing them into contact, although not always into uncontradictory relation, Nietzsche transfers them from mere existence in philosophy, or scientific literature in general, into the sphere or the creed of Weltanschauung of the educated classes, and thus his book becomes capable of influencing the views and strivings of a whole age.”
Zarathustra teaches men the deification of Life. He offers not joy of life, for to him there is no such thing, but fullness of life, in the joy of the senses, “in the triumphant exuberance of vitality, in the pure, lofty naturalness of the antique, in short, in the fusion of God, world, and ego.”
There is a simple but impressive introduction, in which there is a solemn trumpet motive, which leads to a great climax for full orchestra and organ on the chord of C major. There is this heading, “Von den Hinterweltlern” (Of the Dwellers in the Rear World). These are they who sought the solution in religion. Zarathustra too had once dwelt in this rear world. (Horns intone a solemn Gregorian Credo.)
The next heading is “Von der grossen Sehnsucht” (Of the Great Yearning). This stands over an ascending passage in B minor in violoncellos and bassoons, answered by wood-wind instruments in chromatic thirds.
The next section begins with a pathetic cantilena in C minor (second violins, oboes, horn), and the heading is: “Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften” (Of Joys and Passions).
“Grablied” (Grave Song). The oboe has a tender cantilena over the Yearning motive in violoncellos and bassoons.
“Von der Wissenschaft” (Of Science). The fugued passage begins with violoncellos and double basses (divided). The subject of this fugato contains all the diatonic and chromatic degrees of the scale, and the real responses to this subject come in successively a fifth higher.