Take a look at our current subscription offers.
Richard Strauss
1864 – 1949
One of the most gifted composers of the twentieth century, Richard Strauss' position in music's hall of fame nevertheless continues to be hotly debated.
Life and Music
- Strauss began composing seriously at the age of six, by his late teens he had created such a sensation that the great conductor Hans von Bülow had already dubbed him "Richard the Third", a lighthearted reference to Wagner.
- Strauss demonstrated his mastery of miniature forms with his first published set (Opus 10) of a remarkable output of some 200 songs.
- A move to the court opera at Munich in 1886 broadened Strauss' conducting experience and allowed sufficient 'spare' time for him to compose the first of his spectacular series of tone poems: Tod und Verklärung ('Death and Transfiguration'), Don Juan and Macbeth.
- In 1889, Strauss was appointed principal conductor of the Weimar Court Orchestra.
- In 1894 he produced his first opera, Guntram, and fell in love with the leading soprano, Pauline de Ahna, who stayed with him to the end, outliving him by just a few months.
- Some of his hits include: Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche ('Til Eulenspielgel's Merry Pranks'), Also Sprach Zarathustra ('Thus Spake Zarathustra'), Don Quixote, the semi-autobiographical Ein Heldenleben ('A Hero's Life') and the less inspired and indulgently autobiographical Symphonia Domestica (1902-3).
- The most popular of Strauss' operas was the high point of many collaborations with the poet Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. Writing to him during the latter's 50th birthday celebrations in 1924, Strauss said: "Thank you for everything you have dedicated to me from your life's work, for everything you have demanded of me and have awakened in my life".
- Strauss' musical activities during the inter-war years were dominated by conducting and a series of operas - including Intermezzo, Arabella and Daphne - which embrace an easily assimilated lyricism and charm.
- Strauss got a bumpy ride from the Nazis. In 1933, Goebbels appointed him, without prior consultation, head of the Reichsmusikkammer (Hitler's commission for music) but Strauss was removed in 1935 because of his collaboration with Jewish librettist Stefan Zweig on the opera Die Schweigsame Frau.
- For all Strauss' monumental skill and imagination, some listeners continue to find it simply too much of a good thing. Sir Thomas Beecham once mischievously recollected: "I spent a couple of days on the train with a German friend of mine. We amused ourselves by discovering how many notes we could take out of Heldenleben and leave the music essentially intact. By the time we had finished we had taken out 15,000!"
Did you know?
Strauss's ten golden rules for budding young conductors contained the gem: "Never look at the brass, in only encourages them - if you can hear them at all, they are too loud."
