Essential Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was born the year Wagner’s ‘Tristan and Isolde’ was premiered, the son of a Munich horn virtuoso (and unrelated to the Viennese 'Waltz' Strausses). He died a year after Pierre Boulez unveiled his Second Piano Sonata, in a world that had changed forever, having weathered the unprecedented storms of the first half of the 20th century.
Read more…A composing prodigy and a brilliant conductor, Strauss burst onto the scene in his twenties with works such as 'Don Juan' (1888), a tone poem that displayed the virtuosic orchestration (often featuring prominent horn parts), melodic richness and harmonic adventurousness that would become his hallmarks – over the next 15 years, he made the genre of the tone poem his own, often choosing to depict controversial subjects. He married the soprano Pauline de Ahna in 1894 and wrote many of his rich, consummately crafted songs for her. Sopranos would invariably be the focus of his operas, too, starting with his operatic breakthrough with the scandalous 'Salome' (1905), which cemented his reputation as darling of the avant-garde. But many modernists turned against him when he continued on his own path, shying away from atonality, as the new century continued. An enigmatic figure, Strauss was solidly rooted in the German humanist tradition, and his decision to stay in Germany after the Nazis came to power cost his posthumous reputation dearly. He carried on composing through thick and thin, though, and his final years brought about such serene late works as the Four Last Songs and ‘Capriccio’. Throughout his long career, he maintained an unparalleled ability to convey drama and emotion through his music, melding the influence of Mozart and Wagner – the two composers he idolised above all – with a pragmatic and distinctly modern view of music, one that questioned its lofty Romantic aspirations, often bringing it down to earth to celebrate the beauty of the everyday and the intimacy of human experience.