Strauss, Richard (Georg) (b Munich, 1864; d Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 1949). Ger.-born composer, conductor, and pianist (Austrian cit. 1947). Son of Franz Strauss, hn.-player in Munich court orch. Had pf. lessons at 4 and began composing at 6. Vn. lessons at 8. Studied theory with F. Meyer 1875, but went to no mus. acad., having normal education, ending at Munich Univ. At 16 wrote first sym. and str. qt., both being perf. in Munich, 1881. In 1882 Serenade for wind perf. in Dresden, leading to commission from Bülow for Meiningen Orch. 2nd Sym. perf. NY 1884. Ass. cond. to Bülow at Meiningen 1885, succeeding him after a month. Left Meiningen 1886, visited It., and became 3rd cond. at Munich Opera. His Aus Italien perf. Munich 1887. Mus. ass. to Levi at Bayreuth 1889. 3rd cond. Weimar Opera 1889. Success of symphonic poem Don Juan est. him as most important young composer in Ger. and natural successor to Wagner, whose widow took great interest in his career. Bayreuth Fest. début as cond. 1894 (Tannhäuser). Married sop. Pauline de Ahna 1894 and wrote many songs for her, appearing as her accompanist. First opera Guntram failure at Weimar 1894. Ass. cond., Munich Opera 1894, chief cond. 1896–8. Cond. Berlin PO 1894–5. Series of tone-poems—Till Eulenspiegel, Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, and Ein Heldenleben—between 1895 and 1899 confirmed his stature as master of the orch. 2nd opera Feuersnot success in Dresden and Vienna, 1901 and 1902. Visited Eng. 1903, USA 1904. F.p. of Symphonia Domestica in NY. Operas Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909) caused sensations through their supposedly ‘obscene’ treatment of biblical and classical subjects. In latter Strauss first collab. with Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who was to be librettist of 5 more of his operas, beginning in 1911 with the 18th-cent. comedy Der Rosenkavalier. This work was a triumph at its Dresden première, went straight into the repertory of world's leading opera houses, and has stayed there. Since 1898 Strauss had been cond. of Berlin Royal Opera, living in the capital, but after 1908 lived in villa at Garmisch and was in constant demand as cond. of his own works. Completed his last full-scale orch. work, Eine Alpensinfonie, in 1915. Resigned Berlin post 1918 and became joint dir., Vienna Opera, 1919–24. With Max Reinhardt, Hofmannsthal and others, founded Salzburg Fest. 1920 and cond. Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte there 1922. His opera Die Frau ohne Schatten and ballet Schlagobers were prod. in Vienna 1919 and 1924. Opera Intermezzo, to his own lib. representing incident in his own marriage, prod. Dresden 1924. During comp. of Arabella, Hofmannsthal died, 1929. In 1933 new Nazi régime in Ger. appointed Strauss pres. of Reichsmusikkammer, but removed him in 1935 because of disapproval of his collab. with Jewish librettist Stefan Zweig on opera Die schweigsame Frau, which was banned after 4 perfs. Thereafter Strauss was tolerated by régime but kept under surveillance because of Jewish daughter-in-law. Visited London 1936, receiving Gold Medal of Royal Phil. Soc. and conducting at CG. 1-act operas Friedenstag and Daphne prod. 1938. During World War II lived mostly in Vienna and comp. operas Die Liebe der Danae and Capriccio. In 1943 reverted to instr. comps., writing 2nd hn. conc., wind sonatinas, ob. conc., and ‘study for 23 strings’ Metamorphosen, partly inspired by destruction of Ger. opera houses in bombing raids. Moved to Switzerland 1945–9, where in 1947–8 he wrote his last masterpiece, the Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) for sop. and orch. Officially cleared in 1948 of complicity in Nazi régime. Visited London 1947, conducting own works and attending perfs. cond. by Beecham. His last work, completed 23 Nov. 1948, was a song Malven ( Knobel), ded. to Maria Jeritza. After operation in Lausanne in Dec. 1948, returned to Garmisch May 1949, dying there on 8 Sept.

Strauss, like his friend and contemporary Mahler, had immense dual reputation as composer and cond. He was a master of several mus. forms. No sym. orch. can reasonably exist without having in its repertory his series of magnificent tone-poems, in which brilliance of scoring and vividness of representational detail are matched by satisfying mus. construction. Of his 15 operas at least half are regularly in the repertories of the major opera houses. They provide superb singing roles, particularly for women's vv., of which, through his marriage to a sop., he had a profound understanding. In Der Rosenkavalier alone, he wrote parts for 3 sop. in which many a 20th-cent. reputation has been made and which have contributed to making it the most popular opera written in the 20th cent., with the probable exception of Madama Butterfly. In Elektra he approached the atonal and neuro-psychological world of Schoenberg and Berg, but turned aside to what Stravinsky called the ‘time-travelling’ of Der Rosenkavalier and Ariadne auf Naxos, the latter being one of several operas in which Strauss treated subjects from classical mythology, investing them with 20th-cent. traits e.g. Die ägyptische Helena, Daphne, and Die Liebe der Danae. His last opera, a ‘conversation piece’, Capriccio, has become more frequently perf. in recent years. Strauss's mus. is in the Ger. 19th-cent. tradition deriving from Mendelssohn, Liszt, and especially Wagner. However, his love for Mozart, of whose mus. he was a fine cond., is also reflected in many works, leading to a curious but satisfying blend of 18th-cent. elegance and Wagnerian richness as in Rosenkavalier, Ariadne, and Capriccio, and particularly in the superb instr. works of his last years. His natural gift for counterpoint leads to complex and interweaving textures in all his works, which has led his critics to complain of ‘note-spinning’ for its own sake (a charge that has some justification), but the former tendency to ‘write off’ Strauss operas comp. between 1919 and 1940 is gradually being reversed as their virtues become apparent. Though he wrote some concs., his big display pieces are for full orch. and for vv. His unacc. choral works are in a class of their own, and he wrote many first-rate Lieder, some with orch. A song such as Morgen!, for example, is a perfect blend of melody and expression of the text, while its style epitomizes the highly-developed melodic conversational-recit. which was Strauss's lifelong preoccupation in his operas and which even forms part of the subject-matter of Capriccio. The Vier letzte Lieder is a remarkable and moving summing-up of his life's work as well as a testament to all that the late-romantic style had meant to the art of mus. Prin. works:OPERAS (with dates of comp., f.p., and cond.): Guntram, Op.25, comp. 1887–93, rev. 1934–9 (Weimar 1894, Strauss; rev. vers. Weimar 1940, Heger); Feuersnot, Op.50, comp. 1900–1 (Dresden 1901, Schuch); Salome, Op.54, comp. 1903–5 (Dresden 1905, Schuch); Elektra, Op.58, comp. 1906–8 (Dresden 1909, Schuch); Der Rosenkavalier, Op.59, comp. 1909–10 (Dresden 1911, Schuch); Ariadne auf Naxos, Op.60, comp. 1911–12 (Stuttgart 1912, Strauss), rev. version, Prologue comp 1916 (Vienna 1916, Schalk); Die Frau ohne Schatten, Op.65, comp. 1914–17 (Vienna 1919, Schalk); Intermezzo, Op.72, comp. 1917–23 (Dresden 1924, Busch); Die ägyptische Helena, Op.75, comp. 1923–7 (Dresden 1928, Busch), rev. vers. 1933 (Salzburg, Krauss); Arabella, Op.79, comp. 1930–2 (Dresden 1933, Krauss); Die schweigsame Frau, Op.80, comp. 1933–4 (Dresden 1935, Böhm); Friedenstag, Op.81, comp. 1935–6 (Munich 1938, Krauss); Daphne, Op.82, comp. 1936–7 (Dresden 1938, Böhm); Die Liebe der Danae, Op.83, comp. 1938–40 (dress rehearsal only, Salzburg 1944, Krauss; Salzburg 1952, Krauss); Capriccio, Op.85, comp. 1940–1 (Munich 1942, Krauss).BALLETS & OTHER STAGE WORKS: Josephslegende, Op.63 (1913–14); Der Bürger als Edelmann (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme), incidental mus. for Molière-Hofmannsthal play, Op.60 (1912–17); Schlagobers, Op.70 (1921–2); Des Esels Schatten, children's mus. play (1947–8, completed from sketches by K. Haussner), Ettal 1964, London 1970.ORCH.: Serenade in E♭, for 13 wind instr., Op.7 (1881–2); Suite in B♭, for 13 wind instr., Op.4 (1883–4); syms.: No.1 in D minor (1880, unpubd.), No.2 in F minor, Op.12 (1883–4), Symphonia Domestica, Op.53 (1902–3), Eine Alpensinfonie, Op.64 (1911–15); Aus Italien, symphonic fantasy, Op.16 (1886); sym.-poems: Macbeth, Op.23 (1887–8, rev. 1889–90), Don Juan, Op.20 (1888), Tod und Verklärung, Op.24 (1888–9), Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Op.28, (1894–5), Also sprach Zarathustra, Op.30 (1895–6), Don Quixote, Op.35 (1896–7), Ein Heldenleben, Op.40 (1897–8); Festliches Präludium, orch., org., Op.61 (1913); Suite, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Op.60, (1918); Dance Suite (after Couperin) (1922); Waltz, München, 1st vers. (1930), 2nd vers. (1945); Sonatina No.1 in F, 16 wind instr. (1943), No.2 in E♭, 16 wind instr. (1944–5); Metamorphosen, 23 solo str. (1944–5).CONCERTOS etc: hn. conc. No.1 in E♭, Op.11 (1882–3), No.2 in E♭ (1942); vn. conc. in D minor, Op.8 (1881–2); Burleske in D minor, pf., orch. (1885–6, rev. 1890); Parergon zur Symphonia Domestica, pf. (left hand), orch., Op.73 (1925); Panathenäenzug, pf. (left hand), orch., Op.74 (1927); oboe conc. (1945–6); Duett-Concertino, cl., bn., str., hp. (1947).CHORAL: Wandrers Sturmlied, Op.14, ch., orch. (1884); Der Abend and Hymne, Op.34, unacc. ch. (1897); Taillefer, Op.52, sop., ten., bar., ch., orch. (1903); Deutsche Motette, Op.62, sop., cont., ten., bass, unacc. ch. (1913, rev. 1943); Die Tageszeiten, Op.76, 4 songs, male ch., orch. (1928); Die Göttin im Putzzimmer, unacc. ch. (1935); An den Baum Daphne, unacc. ch. (1943).PIANO: Sonata in B minor, Op.5 (1881); 5 Stimmungsbilder, Op.9 (1883–4).SONG-CYCLES: Krämerspiegel, Op.66, v., pf. (1918); Vier letzte Lieder (4 Last Songs), high v., orch. (1948).SONGS (with pf. and/or orch.): Strauss wrote over 200 songs, publishing them in groups. Listed below alphabetically is a selective group of the best-known, with opus numbers where applicable. The sign † means that an orch. acc. (not necessarily by Strauss) exists: Allerseelen, Op.10 No.9 (1885), All’ mein Gedanken, Op.21 No.1 (1888), †Das Bächlein (1933), †Befreit, Op.39 No.4 (1898), †Cäcilie, Op.27 No.2 (1894), Du meines Herzens Krönelein, Op.21 No.2 (1888), Einerlei, Op.69 No.3 (1918), Einkehr, Op.47 No.4 (1900), †Freundliche Vision, Op.48 No.1 (1900), Gefunden, Op.56 No.1 (1903–6), Hat gesagt, Op.36 No.3 (1897), †Die Heiligen drei Königen, Op.56 No.6 (1906), †Heimkehr, Op.15 No.5 (1886), †Heimliche Aufforderung, Op.27 No.3 (1894), †Ich wollt’ ein Sträusslein binden, Op.68 No.2 (1918), †Liebeshymnus, Op.32 No.3 (1896), †Mein Auge, Op.37 No.4 (1897), †Meinem Kinde, Op.37 No.3 (1897), †Morgen!, Op.27 No.4 (1894), †Muttertanderlei, Op.43 No.2 (1899), Die Nacht, Op.10 No.3 (1885), Nachtgang, Op.29 No.3 (1895), Nichts, Op.10 No.2 (1885), †Das Rosenband, Op.36 No.1 (1897), †Ruhe, meine Seele, Op.27 No.1 (1894), †Säusle, Liebe Myrthe, Op.68 No.3 (1918), Schlechtes Wetter, Op.69 No.5 (1918), †Ständchen, Op.17 No.2 (1887), Der Stern, Op.69 No.1 (1918), †Traum durch die Dämmerung, Op.29 No.1 (1895), †Waldseligkeit, Op.49 No.1 (1901), †Wiegenlied, Op.41 No.1 (1899), Wozu noch, Mädchen, Op.19 No.1 (1887–8), †Zueignung, Op.10 No.1 (1885).

Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss (1864-1949), the German composer and conductor, is known especially for his operas and symphonic poems linked to his phenomenal mastery of the orchestra. He was the chief exemplar of post-Wagnerian tastes and techniques.

Richard Strauss was born in Munich to a mother who was a talented amateur musician and a father who was the principal horn player in the Court Opera. Piano lessons with his mother began at the age of 4; at 8 he started violin study. In his own words, however, he was a bad pupil because he did not enjoy practicing. His pleasure even then was in composing, which he tried first when he was only 6. Thereafter he composed steadily while receiving regular instruction in music theory from various local musicians. Meanwhile his general education was furthered at the Royal Gymnasium and for a year at the University of Munich.

Strauss was obviously headed toward a career in composition, for by the age of 20 he had turned out a large and quite respectable collection of piano pieces, songs, chamber music, choruses, and orchestral works, including two symphonies and two concertos. He also got into print very early with the Festival March, written in 1876. This music, as far as one can judge from the available examples, was extremely conservative in tone, modeled after Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. It clearly carried the mark of his father's tutelage, which Strauss said kept him from hearing anything but classical music until he was 16.

The progressive movements of the 19th century touched Strauss only after he took up conducting and settled in 1885 into his first post as director of the Meiningen orchestra. There he became acquainted with a violinist named Alexander Ritter, who opened Strauss's mind to the "advanced" music and ideas of Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, and Richard Wagner—men whose names were anathema in his father's house.

The effect of this awakening was first apparent in a symphonic fantasy, Aus Italien, written in 1886 while Strauss was on a visit to Italy. Full alignment with the newer currents was signaled by his entry into the field of program music cultivated years before by Liszt. The result was a series of nine single-movement, orchestral tone poems beginning with Macbeth (1890), ending with EineAlpensinfonie (1915), and covering a range of subject matter from medieval legend in Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (1895) to Strauss's own domestic life in Symphonia Domestica (1903). Don Juan (1888), Till, and Don Quixote, (1897) are generally the most favored of these works. In principle, however, Strauss's method remained constant. The shaping of each piece was guided by a poetic idea to which his music was linked in a more intimate and detailed way than in earlier programmatic scores. Yet he avoided becoming a mere illustrator by insisting that the composition must also develop "logically from within" to produce a satisfying musical form. And at every point he demonstrated his unsurpassed virtuosity in orchestration.

With the tone poems Strauss came into his own as a composer. He also became increasingly successful as a conductor, performing throughout Europe, especially Germany, where he held positions in Munich, Weimar, and Berlin, and in New York City. By the time he was 30, he was a celebrity on two counts. But there was much more to come after he turned to opera composition.

Strauss, as he said, may have put off composing for the theater from awe of Wagner. Once started, however, he gave it his main attention for almost 40 years, producing 15 operas in that period. The first two, Guntram (1893) and Feuersnot (1901), were failures. Then came Salome (1905), Elektra (1908), Der Rosenkavalier (1910), and Ariadne auf Naxos (1912), which are possibly his best and certainly the most frequently played of all. Salome, with its shocking, perverse sensuality, and Elektra, which goes beyond that in violence and unremitting tension, are prime examples of German expressionism in its most lurid phase. They also show Strauss at the peak of his modernity in respect to musical vocabulary and technique. In Der Rosenkavalier he reverted to a sweetly diatonic strain cast much of the time in waltz rhythm; in Ariadne he looked still farther back as he applied classical methods to the ingenious idea of presenting an antique myth simultaneously with a sketch out of the commedia dell'arte. Of his remaining operas, Die Frau ohne Schatten (1917), Arabella (1932), and Capriccio (1941) are the most interesting, although none has won repertory status.

After Capriccio Strauss returned to earlier interests in concerto composition, chamber music, and songs, the peak of this final effort being the Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings (1945). Grave and Wagnerian in tone, it recalls Strauss's ties to the Germany of his youth and sounds an affecting though belated finale to an era that had long since been closed out by composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, and Béla Bartók.

Further Reading

Strauss's Recollections and Reflections were edited by Will Schuh (1953). Two biographical studies are George R. Marek, Richard Strauss: Life of a Non-hero (1967), and Ernst Krause, Richard Strauss: The Man and His Work (trans. 1969). Joseph Kerman, Opera as Drama (1956), offers a biting censure of the Straussian dramaturgy, while William Mann, Richard Strauss: A Critical Study of the Operas (1964), is generally sympathetic. Strauss's historical position is outlined in Gerald Abraham, A Hundred Years of Music (1938; 3d ed. 1964), and Adolfo Salazar, Music in Our Time (trans. 1946).

Additional Sources

Kennedy, Michael, Richard Strauss, Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1995. □

Richard Strauss , 1864–1949, German composer. Strauss brought to a culmination the development of the 19th-century symphonic poem, and was a leading composer of romantic opera in the early 20th cent. Son of a celebrated horn player, he had extensive musical instruction and began composing as a child of six. His first major work, the symphony in D minor, was first performed in 1880. Strauss's early works, in classical forms, brought him instant acclaim. He succeeded Hans von Bülow as conductor at Meiningen (1885–86) and later as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic concerts (1894–95). His friendship with the poet Alexander Ritter influenced him to adopt the romantic aesthetic philosophy and style of Liszt and Wagner . A group of songs, the symphonic fantasy Aus Italien (1886), and the symphonic poems Don Juan (1888) and Death and Transfiguration (1889) were the first works composed in his new romantic manner. These and the works that followed established him as a master of highly evocative, original, and richly orchestrated program music. These works—including Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (1895); Thus Spake Zarathustra (1895), after Nietszche; Don Quixote (1898), a tone poem in the form of variations with a cello solo; and A Hero's Life (1898)—were violently both lauded and damned as the very essence of musical modernism.

Strauss also gained wide renown for his operas, including Salomé (1905), after Oscar Wilde's play; the brilliantly dramatic Electra (1909); the delightful comedy Der Rosenkavalier (1911); Ariadne auf Naxos (1912); and Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919). He wrote all but the first of these, as well as Die aegyptische Helena (1928) and Arabella (1933), in collaboration with the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal . After Hofmannsthal died (1929) Strauss's librettists were Stefan Zweig for Die schweigsame Frau (1935) and Josef Gregor for Friedenstag (1938), Daphne (1938), and Die Liebe der Danaë (1938–40). Strauss's operas, carrying the Wagnerian leitmotif concept to its fullest development, went beyond Wagner in their intensity of drama and psychological treatment of character motivation. The operas display his music at its most sensuous and passionate. From 1919 until 1924 Strauss was codirector of the Vienna State Opera. During this period he made extended tours abroad, including a second trip to the United States (1922). Strauss served briefly as head of musical affairs (Reichsmusikkammer president) under the Nazis; he was officially exonerated of collaboration in 1948. Among Strauss's last major works are the sorrowful Metamorphosen (1946), for string instruments, and two pieces for voice and orchestra, 3 Gesänge and Im Abendrot (both 1948), considered the final musical expression of dying German romanticism.

Bibliography: See his correspondence ed. by R. Myers (1968); biographies by N. Del Mar (1962), W. S. Mann (1964), A. Jefferson (1963 and 1971), K. and R. Bailey (1985), and M. Boyden (1999); study by D. Puffett (1989).

Strauss, Richard (1864–1949) German composer and conductor. Strauss' symphonic poems, such as Don Juan (1888), Till Eulenspiegel (1895), and Also sprach Zarathustra (1896), use brilliantly coloured orchestration for characterization. His early operas, Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909), deal with female obsession. Der Rosenkavalier (1911) also used the dramatic range of the female voice, but in a comic setting.

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