Much farther on a passage in the strings, beginning in the violoncellos and violas, arises from B minor. “Der Genesende” (The Convalescent).
“Tanzlied.” The dance song begins with laughter in the wood-wind.
“Nachtlied” (Night Song).
“Nachtwanderlied” (The Song of the Night Wanderer, though Nietzsche in later editions changed the title to “The Drunken Song”). The song comes after a fortissimo stroke of the bell, and the bell, sounding twelve times, dies away softly.
The mystical conclusion has excited much discussion. The ending is in two keys—in B major in the high wood-wind and violins, in C major in the basses, pizzicato. “The theme of the Ideal sways aloft in the higher regions in B major; the trombones insist on the unresolved chord of C, E, F sharp; and in the double basses is repeated C, G, C, the World Riddle.” This riddle is unsolved by Nietzsche, by Strauss, and even by Strauss’s commentators.
“DON QUIXOTE,” FANTASTIC VARIATIONS ON A THEME OF KNIGHTLY CHARACTER, OP. 35
INTRODUCTION, THEME WITH VARIATIONS, AND FINALE
Don Quixote, a virtuoso tone poem, shows Strauss at his best and at his worst. Composers have laid violent hands on the world-famous novel of Cervantes. The Knight has figured in both serious and comic operas. It occurred to Strauss that Don Quixote might be portrayed by one instrument, Sancho Panza by another. Strauss undoubtedly rubbed his hands with glee at the thought of the musical representation of ba-a-a-ing sheep and the opportunity of introducing a wind machine with a man turning a crank for the variation, “The Ride through the Air.” But there are fine passages in the work. When Don Quixote speaks nobly of the ideal, Strauss gives him noble music, and Strauss has seldom written more charming music than for the last speech of Sancho Panza. One might ask, however, if this music is in Sancho Panza’s character as Cervantes describes it. And in the final music—the disillusionment of Don Quixote and his death—Strauss attains, without straining and exaggeration, an emotional height that is seldom found in his instrumental compositions that follow. Hearing these emotional sections one almost forgets the imitative and pictorial passages of the work, which seem too long, with much music that is of little worth and interest.
Don Quixote (Introduzione, Tema con Variazioni, e Finale): Fantastische Variationen uber ein Thema ritterlichen Charakters, was composed at Munich in 1897 (the score was completed on December 29th of that year). It was played for the first time at a Gürzenich Concert, Cologne, from manuscript, Franz Wüllner conductor, March 8, 1898. Friedrich Grützmacher was the solo violoncellist. Strauss conducted his composition on March 18, 1898, at a concert of the Frankfort Museumgesellschaft, when Hugo Becker was the violoncellist. It is said that Becker composed an exceedingly piquant cadenza for violoncello on the “Quixote” motive for his own enjoyment at home.
The work is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, double bassoon, six horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tenor tuba, bass tuba, kettledrums, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, wind machine, harp, sixteen first violins, sixteen second violins, twelve violas, ten violoncellos, eight double basses. It is dedicated to Joseph Dupont.