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| Birth Name(s) : Richard Strauss |
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Full Richard Strauss Biography
Richard Georg Strauss (June 11, 1864 – September 8, 1949) was a German composer of the late Romantic era and early modern era, particularly noted for his tone poems and operas. Strauss was also a noted conductor.
Strauss was born on June 11, 1864, in Munich, the son of Franz Strauss, who was the principal horn player at the Court Opera in Munich. He received a thorough, but conservative, musical education from his father in his youth, writing his first music at the age of six. He continued to write music almost until his death.
In 1882 he entered Munich University, where he studied philosophy and art history, but not music. Nevertheless, he left a year later to go to Berlin, where he studied briefly before securing a post as assistant conductor to Hans von Bülow, taking over from him at Munich when von Bülow resigned in 1885. His compositions around this time were quite conservative, in the style of Robert Schumann or Felix Mendelssohn, true to his father's teachings. His Horn Concerto No. 1 (1882–1883) is representative of this period and is still regularly played.
Richard Strauss married soprano Pauline de Ahna on September 10, 1894. She was famous for being bossy, ill-tempered, eccentric, and outspoken, but the marriage was happy, and she was a great source of inspiration to him. Throughout his life, from his earliest songs to the final Four Last Songs of 1948, he would prefer the soprano voice to all others. Indeed, nearly every major operatic role that Strauss wrote is for a soprano.
Around the end of the 19th century, Strauss turned his attention to opera. His first two attempts in the genre, Guntram in 1894 and Feuersnot in 1901 were considered obscene and were critical failures. However, in 1905 he produced Salome (based on the play by Oscar Wilde), and the reaction was as passionate and extreme as it had been with Don Juan. When it opened at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, there was such a public outcry that it was closed after just one performance. Doubtless, much of this was due to the subject matter, and negative publicity about Wilde's "immoral" behavior. However, some of the negative reactions may have stemmed from Strauss's use of dissonance, rarely heard then at the opera house. Elsewhere the opera was highly successful and Strauss reputedly financed his house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen completely from the revenues generated by the opera, although this claim is more a reflection of his view that composers being adequately - and financially - rewarded for their work rather than a precise assessment of the opera's success. After all, Strauss was also starting to be well paid for his conducting assignments.
Strauss also made live-recording player piano music rolls for the Hupfeld system all of which survive today and can be heard.
Strauss completed the composition of Metamorphosen, a work for 23 solo strings, in 1945. It is now generally accepted that Metamorphosen was composed, specifically, to mourn the bombing of Strauss's favorite opera house, the Hoftheater in Munich. Strauss called this "the greatest catastrophe that has ever disturbed my life." However, some scholars suggest that the original intention of the piece was to be a choral setting of Goethe's poem, Niemand wird sich selber kennen.
In 1948, Strauss wrote his last work, Vier letzte Lieder ("Four last songs") for soprano and orchestra, reportedly with Kirsten Flagstad in mind. She certainly gave the first performance and it was recorded, but the quality of the recording is poor. It is available as a historic CD release for enthusiasts. All his life he had produced lieder, but these are among his best known (alongside "Zueignung", "Cäcilie", "Morgen" and "Allerseelen"). When compared to the work of younger composers, Strauss's harmonic and melodic language was considered somewhat old-fashioned by this time. Nevertheless, the songs have always been popular with audiences and performers. Strauss himself declared in 1947, "I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer!"
Richard Strauss made a number of recordings of his music, as well as German and Austrian composers. Harold C. Schonberg in The Great Conductors (New York:Simon and Schuster, 1967) says that, while Strauss was a very fine conductor, he often put scant effort into his recordings. Some have suggested that Strauss made recordings simply to make money. The reissue of electrical recordings Strauss made in 1926-29 on CD by Koch Legacy, Preiser, and Deutsche Grammophon has created renewed debate about whether Strauss really cared about his recordings. Many of these recordings were originally issued by Polydor, with Brunswick handling American distribution.
The 1929 performances of Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra have long been considered the best of his early electrical recordings; even the original 78-rpm discs had superior sound for their time and the performances were top-notch and quite exciting at times, despite a noticeable mistake by the French horn soloist in the famous opening passage of Till Eulenspiegel. The breaks for side changes, necessitated by the 78-rpm process, are rather curious because Strauss actually repeated a few notes each time the music resumed; careful editing for LP and CD reissues resolved the repetitions as well as the obvious interruptions in the music. |
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