128-662: Vox maris , Op. 31, is a symphonic poem composed between 1929 and 1954 by the Romanian composer George Enescu , dedicated to the memory of the great Romanian pianist Elena Bibescu . Enescu did not live to hear this work in concert: the première was given in Bucharest on 10 September 1964, by the Romanian Radio-Television Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Iosif Conta [ ro ; ru ; ja ] . Symphonic poem A symphonic poem or tone poem
256-601: A denazification tribunal in Munich. That same month he orchestrated Ruhe, meine Seele! , a song that he had originally composed in 1894. In December 1948, Strauss was hospitalized for several weeks after undergoing bladder surgery. His health rapidly deteriorated after that, and he conducted his last performance, the end of Act 2 of Der Rosenkavalier at the Prinzregententheater in Munich, during celebrations of his 85th birthday on 10 June 1949. On 15 August, he suffered
384-492: A "symphonic fantasy", is the most closely dependent on its program while also showing a sureness of outline rare in other composers. With the compositional approach he took from the Third Symphony onward, Sibelius sought to overcome the distinction between symphony and tone poem to fuse their most basic principles—the symphony's traditional claims of weight, musical abstraction, gravitas and formal dialogue with seminal works of
512-595: A celebrity conductor, and from 1919 to 1924 he was principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera . In 1920 he co-founded the Salzburg Festival with Max Reinhardt and the set designer Alfred Rolle. In 1924 Strauss's opera Intermezzo premiered at the Dresden Semperoper with both the music and libretto by Strauss. For this opera, Strauss wanted to move away from post-Wagnerian metaphysics which had been
640-496: A concert of lieder with his wife. During this trip he was working intensively on composing his third opera, Salome , based on Oscar Wilde 's 1891 play Salome . The work, which premiered in Dresden in 1905, became Strauss's greatest triumph in his career up to that point, and opera houses all over the world quickly began programing the opera. After Salome , Strauss had a string of critically successful operas which he created with
768-708: A concert pianist, performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 , for which he composed his own cadenzas . In December 1885, Bülow unexpectedly resigned from his post, and Strauss was left to lead the Meiningen Court Orchestra as interim principal conductor for the remainder of the artistic season through April 1886. He notably helped prepare the orchestra for the world premiere performance of Johannes Brahms 's Symphony No. 4 , which Brahms himself conducted. He also conducted his Symphony No. 2 for Brahms, who advised Strauss: "Your symphony contains too much playing about with themes. This piling up of many themes based on
896-602: A conservative harmonic style, many of which are lost: two piano trios (1877 and 1878), a string quartet (1881), a piano sonata (1882), a cello sonata (1883), a piano quartet (1885), a violin sonata (1888), as well as a serenade (1882) and a longer suite (1884), both scored for double wind quintet plus two additional horns and contrabassoon. After 1890, Strauss composed very infrequently for chamber groups, his energies being almost completely absorbed with large-scale orchestral works and operas. Four of his chamber pieces are actually arrangements of portions of his operas, including
1024-466: A crucial influence on his son's developing taste, not least in Strauss's abiding love for the horn. His Horn Concerto No. 1 , is representative of this period and is a staple of the modern horn repertoire. In 1874, Strauss heard his first Wagner operas, Lohengrin and Tannhäuser . In 1878 he attended performances of Die Walküre and Siegfried in Munich, and in 1879 he attended performances of
1152-549: A detailed program. The development of the symphonic poem in Russia, as in the Czech lands, stemmed from an admiration for Liszt's music and a devotion to national subjects. Added to this was the Russian love of story-telling, for which the genre seemed expressly tailored, and led critic Vladimir Stasov to write, "Virtually all Russian music is programmatic". Macdonald writes that Stasov and
1280-587: A heart attack and he quietly died of kidney failure in his sleep shortly after 2 PM on 8 September 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen , West Germany . From his death-bed, typical of his enduring sense of humour, he commented to his daughter-in-law Alice, "dying is just as I composed it in Tod und Verklärung ". Georg Solti , who had arranged Strauss's 85th birthday celebration, also directed an orchestra during Strauss's burial. The conductor later described how, during
1408-546: A new kind of virtuosity in its bravura orchestral manner. Strauss went on to write a series of increasingly ambitious tone poems: Death and Transfiguration (1889), Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (1895), Also sprach Zarathustra (1896), Don Quixote (1897), Ein Heldenleben (1898), Symphonia Domestica (1903) and An Alpine Symphony (1911–1915). One commentator has observed of these works that "no orchestra could exist without his tone poems, written to celebrate
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#17332021831351536-417: A new type of symphonic poem, which led eventually to Sibelius's Tapiola ". Also, in showing how to apply new forms for new purposes, Macdonald writes that Smetana "began a profusion of symphonic poems from his younger contemporaries in the Czech lands and Slovakia", including Antonín Dvořák , Zdeněk Fibich , Leoš Janáček and Vítězslav Novák . Dvořák wrote two groups of symphonic poems, which date from
1664-851: A non-orchestral 'symphonic poem'. Alexander Ritter , who himself composed six symphonic poems in the vein of Liszt's works, directly influenced Richard Strauss in writing program music. Strauss wrote on a wide range of subjects, some of which had been previously considered unsuitable to set to music, including literature, legend, philosophy and autobiography. The list includes Macbeth (1886–87), Don Juan (1888–89), Death and Transfiguration (1888–89), Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (1894–95), Also sprach Zarathustra ( Thus Spoke Zoroaster , 1896), Don Quixote (1897), Ein Heldenleben ( A Hero's Life , 1897–98), Symphonia Domestica ( Domestic Symphony , 1902–03) and An Alpine Symphony (1911–1915). In these works, Strauss takes realism in orchestral depiction to unprecedented lengths, widening
1792-590: A period. Goebbels wrote in his diary: Unfortunately we still need him, but one day we shall have our own music and then we shall have no further need of this decadent neurotic. Nevertheless, because of Strauss's international eminence, in November 1933 he was appointed to the post of president of the newly founded Reichsmusikkammer , the Reich Music Chamber. Strauss, who had lived through numerous political regimes and had no interest in politics, decided to accept
1920-489: A piano reduction of the orchestral part himself, with his teacher Benno Walter as soloist. The same year he entered Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich , where he studied philosophy and art history, but not music. He left a year later to go to Berlin, where he studied briefly before securing a post with the Meiningen Court Orchestra as assistant conductor to Hans von Bülow , who had been enormously impressed by
2048-459: A similar manner to these works. Russian folklore also provided material for symphonic poems by Alexander Dargomyzhsky , Anatoly Lyadov and Alexander Glazunov . Glazunov's Stenka Razin and Lyadov's Baba-Yaga Kikimora and The Enchanted Lake are all based on national subjects. The Lyadov works' lack of purposeful harmonic rhythm (an absence less noticeable in Baba-Yaga and Kikimora due to
2176-440: A somber motif that is harmonically inconclusive (Hamlet) against a tranquil and harmonically conclusive motif (Ophelia), and developing the music from these principles. In Death and Transfiguration , a sprightly melody in a major key evokes childhood. Some piano and chamber works , such as Arnold Schoenberg 's string sextet Verklärte Nacht , have similarities with symphonic poems in their overall intent and effect. However,
2304-418: A superficial but still exhilarating bustle and whirl) produces a sense of unreality and timelessness much like the telling of an oft-repeated and much loved fairy tale. While none of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 's symphonic poems has a Russian subject, they hold musical form and literary material in fine balance. (Tchaikovsky did not call Romeo and Juliet a symphonic poem but rather a "fantasy-overture", and
2432-490: A third clarinet in C, bassett horn, bass clarinet, and contrabassoon. Strauss wrote two early symphonies: Symphony No. 1 (1880) and Symphony No. 2 (1884). However, Strauss's style began to truly develop and change when, in 1885, he met Alexander Ritter , a noted composer and violinist, and the husband of one of Richard Wagner's nieces. It was Ritter who persuaded Strauss to abandon the conservative style of his youth and begin writing tone poems . He also introduced Strauss to
2560-510: A triad, which differ from one another only in rhythm, has no value." Brahms' music, like Wagner's, also left a tremendous impression upon Strauss, and he often referred to this time of his life as his 'Brahmsschwärmerei' ('Brahms adoration') during which several his compositions clearly show Brahms' influence, including the Piano Quartet in C minor , Op. 13 (1883–84), Wandrers Sturmlied (1884) and Burleske (1885–86)." In 1885 Strauss met
2688-503: A work that had a tremendous influence on Liszt. However, Liszt perfected the creation of significantly longer formal structures solely through thematic transformation, not only in the symphonic poems but in others works such as his Second Piano Concerto and his Piano Sonata in B minor . In fact, when a work had to be shortened, Liszt tended to cut sections of conventional musical development and preserve sections of thematic transformation. While Liszt had been inspired to some extent by
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#17332021831352816-413: A world of uncompromisingly brutal directness and energy. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov wrote only two orchestral works that rank as symphonic poems, his "musical tableau" Sadko (1867–92) and Skazka ( Legend , 1879–80), originally titled Baba-Yaga . While this may perhaps be surprising, considering his love for Russian folklore, both his symphonic suites Antar and Scheherazade are conceived in
2944-619: A year before his death, he was cleared of any wrongdoing by a denazification tribunal in Munich. Strauss was born on 11 June 1864 in Munich , the son of Josephine (née Pschorr) and Franz Strauss , who was the principal horn player at the Court Opera in Munich and a professor at the Königliche Musikschule . His mother was the daughter of Georg Pschorr, a financially prosperous brewer from Munich . Strauss began his musical studies at
3072-564: Is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement , which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape , or other (non-musical) source. The German term Tondichtung (tone poem) appears to have been first used by the composer Carl Loewe in 1828. The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt first applied the term Symphonische Dichtung to his 13 works in this vein , which commenced in 1848. While many symphonic poems may compare in size and scale to symphonic movements (or even reach
3200-572: Is also worth noting, both in his use of thematic transformation and his handling of multiple themes in intricate counterpoint . His use of variation form in Don Quixote is handled exceptionally well, as is his use of rondo form in Till Eulenspiegel . As Hugh Macdonald points out in the New Grove (1980), "Strauss liked to use a simple but descriptive theme—for instance the three-note motif at
3328-458: Is considered by some critics a parody of Vienna in an idiom no Viennese would recognize as his own. Albert Roussel 's first symphonic poem, based on Leo Tolstoy 's novel Resurrection (1903), was soon followed by Le Poème de forêt (1904–06), which is in four movements written in cyclic form . Pour une fête de printemps (1920), initially conceived as the slow movement of his Second Symphony. Charles Koechlin also wrote several symphonic poems,
3456-512: The Finlandia hymn by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi – to the central part after Finland became independent. The symphonic poem did not enjoy as clear a sense of national identity in other countries, even though numerous works of the kind were written. Composers included Arnold Bax and Frederick Delius in Great Britain; Edward MacDowell , Howard Hanson , Ferde Grofé and George Gershwin in
3584-723: The Bavarian State Opera where he worked as third conductor from 1886 to 1889. He then served as principal conductor of the Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar from 1889 to 1894. In 1894 he made his conducting debut at the Bayreuth Festival , conducting Wagner's Tannhäuser with his wife, soprano Pauline de Ahna , singing Elisabeth. He then returned to the Bavarian State Opera, this time as principal conductor, from 1894 to 1898, after which he
3712-544: The Bayreuth Festival to hear his father perform in the world premiere of Wagner's Parsifal ; after which surviving letters to his father and to Thuille detail his seemingly negative impression of Wagner and his music. In later life, Strauss said that he deeply regretted the conservative hostility to Wagner's progressive works. In early 1882, in Vienna, Strauss gave the first performance of his Violin Concerto in D minor , playing
3840-563: The Berlin Philharmonic in 1894–1895. In 1897, the Strausses' only child, their son Franz, was born. In 1906, Strauss purchased a block of land at Garmisch-Partenkirchen and had a villa ( Strauss-Villa [ de ] ) built there with the down payments from the publisher Adolph Fürstner for his opera Salome , residing there until his death. Strauss left the Bavarian State Opera in 1898 when he became principal conductor of
3968-622: The Berliner Tonkünstlerverein . He also served as editor of the book series Die Musik . He used all of these posts to champion contemporary German composers like Mahler . His own compositions were becoming increasingly popular, and the first major orchestra to perform an entire concert of only his music was the Vienna Philharmonic in 1901. In 1903 Strauss Festivals dedicated to his music were established in London and Heidelberg. At
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4096-558: The Daphne-Etude for solo violin and the String Sextet, which is the overture to his final opera Capriccio . His last independent chamber work, an Allegretto in E major for violin and piano, dates from 1948. He also composed two large-scale works for wind ensemble during this period: Sonatina No. 1 "From an Invalid's Workshop" (1943) and Sonatina No. 2 "Happy Workshop" (1946)—both scored for double wind quintet plus two additional horns,
4224-483: The Four Last Songs , which deal with the subject of dying. The last one, "Im Abendrot" (At Sunset), ends with the line "Is this perhaps death?" The question is not answered in words, but instead Strauss quotes the "transfiguration theme" from his earlier tone poem Death and Transfiguration — meant to symbolize the transfiguration and fulfilment of the soul after death. In June 1948, he was cleared of any wrong-doing by
4352-516: The Gauleiter of Vienna. However, Strauss was unable to protect his Jewish relatives completely; in early 1944, while Strauss was away, Alice and her son Franz were abducted by the Gestapo and imprisoned for two nights. Strauss's personal intervention at this point saved them, and he was able to take them back to Garmisch, where the two remained under house arrest until the end of the war. Strauss completed
4480-652: The Reichsmusikkammer and principal conductor of the Bayreuth Festival. The latter role he accepted after conductor Arturo Toscanini had resigned from the position in protest against the Nazi Party . These positions have led some to criticize Strauss for his seeming collaboration with the Nazis. However, Strauss's daughter-in-law, Alice Grab Strauss [née von Hermannswörth], was Jewish and much of his apparent acquiescence to
4608-655: The Staatskapelle Berlin at the Berlin State Opera in the fall of 1898; a position he remained in for 15 years. By this time in his career, he was in constant demand as a guest conductor internationally and enjoyed celebrity status as a conductor; particularly in the works of Wagner , Mozart , and Liszt in addition to his own compositions. He became president of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein in 1901, and that same year became leader of
4736-696: The Theresienstadt concentration camp to argue, albeit unsuccessfully, for the release of Alice's grandmother, Paula Neumann. In the end, Neumann and 25 other relatives were murdered in the camps. While Alice's mother, Marie von Grab, was safe in Lucerne, Switzerland, Strauss also wrote several letters to the SS pleading for the release of her children who were also held in camps; his letters were ignored. In 1942, Strauss moved with his family back to Vienna, where Alice and her children could be protected by Baldur von Schirach ,
4864-411: The musicologist Hugh Macdonald , the symphonic poem met three 19th-century aesthetic goals: it related music to outside sources; it often combined or compressed multiple movements into a single principal section; and it elevated instrumental program music to an aesthetic level that could be regarded as equivalent to, or higher than opera . The symphonic poem remained a popular composition form from
4992-586: The 1840s until the 1920s, when composers began to abandon the genre . Symphonic poems are thought to bridge the gap between different modes of expression. Much research has been done on the semiotic relationship between symphonic poems and their extra-musical inspiration, such as art, literature and nature. Composers used many different musical gestures to evoke a non-musical concept. Some musical gestures appear to be literal representations of their non-musical counterparts. For example, Sergei Rachmaninoff uses an uneven 5/8 time signature throughout The Isle of
5120-482: The 1870s, supported by the newly founded Société Nationale and its promotion of younger French composers. In the year after its foundation, 1872, Camille Saint-Saëns composed his Le rouet d'Omphale , soon following it with three more, the most famous of which became the Danse macabre (1874). In all four of these works Saint-Saëns experimented with orchestration and thematic transformation . La jeunesse d'Hercule (1877)
5248-436: The 1890s. The first, which Macdonald variously calls symphonic poems and overtures, forms a cycle similar to Má vlast , with a single musical theme running through all three pieces. Originally conceived as a trilogy to be titled Příroda, Život a Láska ( Nature, Life and Love ), they appeared instead as three separate works, V přírodě ( In Nature's Realm ), Carnival and Othello . The score for Othello contains notes from
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5376-500: The Bavarian State Opera was not a happy one. With the death of Ludwig II of Bavaria in June 1886, the opera house was not as well financially supported by his successor Otto of Bavaria which meant that much of the more ambitious and expensive repertoire that he wanted to stage, such as Wagner's operas, were unfeasible. The opera assignments he was given, works by Boieldieu, Auber and Donizetti, bored him, and to make matters worse Hermann Levi,
5504-659: The Bayreuth Festival, conducting Wagner's Tannhäuser with Pauline singing Elisabeth. Just prior to their marriage the following September, Strauss left his post in Weimar when he was appointed Kapellmeister, or first conductor, of the Bavarian State Opera where he became responsible for the operas of Wagner. While working in Munich for the next four years he had his largest creative period of tone poem composition, producing Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (1895), Also sprach Zarathustra (1896), Don Quixote (1897), and Ein Heldenleben (1898). He also served as principal conductor of
5632-457: The Belgian composer César Franck wrote an orchestral piece based on Victor Hugo 's poem Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne . The work exhibits characteristics of a symphonic poem, and some musicologists, such as Norman Demuth and Julien Tiersot, consider it the first of its genre, preceding Liszt's compositions. However, Franck did not publish or perform his piece; neither did he set about defining
5760-464: The Dead in order to suggest the rocking of a boat. In Richard Strauss ’s Death and Transfiguration , the composer uses the orchestra to mimic the sound of an irregular heartbeat and labored breathing. Other musical gestures capture the essence of the subject on a more abstract level. For example, In Franz Liszt’s Hamlet , Liszt portrays the complex relation between Hamlet and Ophelia by juxtaposing
5888-660: The German musical scene, but neither wrote symphonic poems; instead, they devoted themselves completely to music drama (Wagner) and absolute music (Brahms). Therefore, other than Strauss and numerous concert overtures by others, there are only isolated symphonic poems by German and Austrian composers— Hugo Wolf 's Penthesilea (1883–85), Alexander von Zemlinsky 's Die Seejungfrau (1902-03) and Arnold Schoenberg 's Pelleas und Melisande (1902–03). Because of its clear relationship between poem and music, Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (1899) for string sextet has been characterised as
6016-735: The Montreux Palace hotel in Montreux. There they met the Swiss music critic Willy Schuh , who became Strauss's biographer. Short of money, in 1947 Strauss embarked on his last international tour, a three-week trip to London, in which he conducted several of his tone poems and excerpts of his operas, and was present during a complete staging of Elektra by the BBC . The trip was a critical success and provided him and his wife with some much-needed money. From May to September 1948, just before his death, Strauss composed
6144-583: The Nazi Party was done to save her life and the lives of her children (his Jewish grandchildren). He was also apolitical, and took the Reichsmusikkammer post to advance copyright protections for composers, attempting as well to preserve performances of works by banned composers such as Mahler and Felix Mendelssohn . Further, Strauss insisted on using a Jewish librettist, Stefan Zweig , for his opera Die schweigsame Frau which ultimately led to his firing from
6272-480: The Nazi regime. Strauss attempted to ignore Nazi bans on performances of works by Debussy, Mahler, and Mendelssohn. He also continued to work on a comic opera, Die schweigsame Frau , with his Jewish friend and librettist Stefan Zweig . When the opera was premiered in Dresden in 1935, Strauss insisted that Zweig's name appear on the theatrical billing, much to the ire of the Nazi regime. Hitler and Goebbels avoided attending
6400-627: The Nightingale , excerpted from his opera The Nightingale . Alexander Scriabin 's The Poem of Ecstasy (1905–08) and Prometheus: The Poem of Fire (1908–10), in their projection of an egocentric theosophic world unequalled in other symphonic poems, are notable for their detail and advanced harmonic idiom. Socialist realism in the Soviet Union allowed program music to survive longer there than in western Europe, as typified by Dmitri Shostakovich 's symphonic poem October (1967). While France
6528-513: The Reichsmusikkammer and Bayreuth. His opera Friedenstag , which premiered just before the outbreak of World War II , was a thinly veiled criticism of the Nazi Party that attempted to persuade Germans to abandon violence for peace. Thanks to his influence, his daughter-in-law was placed under protected house arrest during the war, but despite extensive efforts he was unable to save dozens of his in-laws from being killed in Nazi concentration camps . In 1948,
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#17332021831356656-474: The Romantic symphony . Thematic transformation, like cyclic form, was nothing new in itself. It had been previously used by Mozart and Haydn. In the final movement of his Ninth Symphony , Beethoven had transformed the theme of the "Ode to Joy" into a Turkish march. Weber and Berlioz had also transformed themes, and Schubert used thematic transformation to bind together the movements of his Wanderer Fantasy ,
6784-598: The Shakespeare play, showing that Dvořák meant to write it as a programmatic work; however, the sequence of events and characters portrayed does not correspond to the notes. The second group of symphonic poems comprises five works. Four of them— The Water Goblin , The Noon Witch , The Golden Spinning Wheel and The Wild Dove —are based on poems from Karel Jaromír Erben 's Kytice ( Bouquet ) collection of fairy tales . In these four poems, Dvořák assigns specific musical themes for important characters and events in
6912-466: The Steppes of Central Asia "powerful orchestral pictures, each unique in its composer's output". Titled a "musical portrait", In the Steppes of Central Asia evokes the journey of a caravan across the steppes . Night on Bald Mountain , especially its original version, contains harmony that is often striking, sometimes pungent and highly abrasive; its initial stretches especially pull the listener into
7040-408: The Strauss home. The Strauss family was frequently joined in their home for music making, meals, and other activities by the orphaned composer and music theorist Ludwig Thuille who was viewed as an adopted member of the family. Strauss's father taught his son the music of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert. His father further assisted his son with his musical composition during the 1870s and into
7168-666: The United States; Carl Nielsen in Denmark; Zygmunt Noskowski and Mieczysław Karłowicz in Poland and Ottorino Respighi in Italy. Also, with the rejection of Romantic ideals in the 20th century and their replacement with ideals of abstraction and independence of music, the writing of symphonic poems went into decline. Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss ( German: [ˈʁɪçaʁt ˈʃtʁaʊs] ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949)
7296-804: The Viennese theatre historian. Other well-known works by Strauss include two symphonies, lieder (especially the Four Last Songs ), the Violin Concerto in D minor , the Horn Concerto No. 1 , Horn Concerto No. 2 , his Oboe Concerto and other instrumental works such as Metamorphosen . A prominent conductor in Western Europe and the Americas, Strauss enjoyed quasi-celebrity status as his compositions became standards of orchestral and operatic repertoire. He
7424-504: The age of four, studying piano with August Tombo who was the harpist in the Munich Court Orchestra. Soon after, he began attending the rehearsals of the orchestra, and began getting lessons in music theory and orchestration from the ensemble's assistant conductor. He wrote his first composition at the age of six, and continued to write music almost until his death. In 1872, he started receiving violin instruction from Benno Walter ,
7552-602: The autumn of 1887. Also happily, Strauss met his future wife, soprano Pauline de Ahna , in 1887. De Ahna was then a voice student at the Munich Musikschule (now the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich ), but soon switched to private lessons with Strauss who became her principal teacher. In May 1889 Strauss left his post with the Bavarian State Opera after being appointed Kapellmeister to Charles Alexander, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in Weimar, beginning in
7680-424: The autumn of 1889. During the summer of 1889 he served as the assistant conductor of the Bayreuth Festival during which time he befriended Cosima Wagner who became a longterm close friend. Pauline De Ahna went with Strauss to Weimar and he later married her on 10 September 1894. She was famous for being irascible, garrulous, eccentric and outspoken, but to all appearances the marriage was essentially happy, and she
7808-532: The best known of which are included in his cycle based on The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling . Through these works, he defended the viability of the symphonic poem long after it had gone out of vogue. Both Liszt and Richard Strauss worked in Germany, but while Liszt may have invented the symphonic poem and Strauss brought it to its highest point, overall the form was less well received there than in other countries. Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner dominated
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#17332021831357936-532: The blackest days of World War II, the piece expresses Strauss's mourning of, among other things, the destruction of German culture—including the bombing of every great opera house in the nation. At the end of the war, Strauss wrote in his private diary: The most terrible period of human history is at an end, the twelve year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany's 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom. In April 1945, American soldiers occupying Germany at
8064-411: The boys or their mother being sent to concentration camps . Frustrated that he could no longer work with Zweig as his librettist, Strauss turned to Joseph Gregor , a Viennese theatre historian, at Gregor's request. The first opera they worked on together was Daphne , but it ultimately became the second of their operas to be premiered. Their first work to be staged was in 1938, when the entire nation
8192-593: The composer Alexander Ritter who was a violinist in the Meiningen orchestra and the husband of one of Richard Wagner 's nieces. An avid champion of the ideals of Wagner and Franz Liszt , Ritter had a tremendous impact on the trajectory of Strauss's work as a composer from 1885 onward. Ritter convinced Strauss to abandon his more conservative style of composing and embrace the "music of the future" by modeling his compositional style on Wagner and Liszt. He further influenced Strauss by engaging him in studies and conversations on
8320-472: The composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again", when Strauss had accepted the presidency of the Reichsmusikkammer . Much of Strauss's motivation in his conduct during the Third Reich was, however, to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law Alice and his Jewish grandchildren from persecution. Both of his grandsons were bullied at school, but Strauss used his considerable influence to prevent
8448-572: The composer – who had grown old, tired, and a little jaded – into focus. The major works of the last years of Strauss's life, written in his late 70s and 80s, include, among others, his Horn Concerto No. 2 , Metamorphosen , his Oboe Concerto , his Duet concertino for clarinet and bassoon , and his Four Last Songs . In June 1945, after finishing Metamorphosen , Strauss completed his Sonatina No 2 in E-flat major (" Fröhliche Werkstatt ") for 16 wind instruments, which he had begun in early 1944; at
8576-407: The composition of Metamorphosen , a work for 23 solo strings, in 1945. The title and inspiration for the work comes from a profoundly self-examining poem by Goethe , which Strauss had considered setting as a choral work. Generally regarded as one of the masterpieces of the string repertoire, Metamorphosen contains Strauss's most sustained outpouring of tragic emotion. Conceived and written during
8704-437: The composition of symphonic poems. Even his works in other instrumental forms are very free in structure and frequently partake of the nature of programme music. Among later Russian symphonic poems, Sergei Rachmaninoff 's The Rock shows as much the influence of Tchaikovsky's work as Isle of the Dead (1909) does its independence from it. A similar debt to his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov imbues Igor Stravinsky 's The Song of
8832-424: The cycle is similar to Smetana's Má vlast in overall scope. Henri Duparc 's Lenore (1875) displayed a Wagnerian warmth in its writing and orchestration. Franck wrote the delicately evocative Les Éolides , following it with the narrative Le Chasseur maudit and the piano-and-orchestral tone poem Les Djinns , conceived in much the same manner as Liszt's Totentanz . Ernest Chausson 's Vivane illustrates
8960-399: The cycle's last two poems, Tábor and Blaník. While expanding the form to a unified cycle of symphonic poems, Smetana created what Macdonald terms "one of the monuments of Czech music" and, Clapham writes, "extended the scope and purpose of the symphonic poem beyond the aims of any later composer". Clapham adds that in his musical depiction of scenery in these works, Smetana "established
9088-479: The director of the Munich Court Orchestra and his father's cousin, and at 11 began five years of compositional study with Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer. In 1882 he graduated from the Ludwigsgymnasium and afterwards attended only one year at the University of Munich in 1882–1883. In addition to his formal teachers, Strauss was profoundly influenced musically by his father who made instrumental music-making central to
9216-536: The drama. For The Golden Spinning Wheel , Dvořák arrived at these themes by setting lines from the poems to music. He also follows Liszt and Smetana's example of thematic transformation, metamorphosing the king's theme in The Golden Spinning Wheel to represent the wicked stepmother and also the mysterious, kindly old man found in the tale. Macdonald writes that while these works may seem diffuse by symphonic standards, their literary sources actually define
9344-511: The early 1880s, providing advice, comments, and criticisms. His father also provided support by showcasing his son's compositions in performance with the Wilde Gung'l, an amateur orchestra he conducted from 1875 to 1896. Many of his early symphonic compositions were written for this ensemble. His compositions at this time were indebted to the style of Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn , true to his father's teachings. His father undoubtedly had
9472-499: The end of the score he wrote "To the Manes of the divine Mozart at the end of a life full of thankfulness". Like those of most Germans, Strauss's bank accounts were frozen, and many of his assets seized by American forces. Now elderly and with very few resources left, Strauss and his wife left Germany for Switzerland in October 1945 where they settled in a hotel outside Zurich, and later at
9600-454: The end of the war arrived at Strauss's Garmisch estate. As Strauss descended the staircase, he announced to Lieutenant Milton Weiss of the U.S. Army, "I am Richard Strauss, the composer of Rosenkavalier and Salome ." Lt. Weiss, who was also a musician, nodded in recognition. An "Off Limits" sign was subsequently placed on the lawn to protect Strauss. The American oboist John de Lancie , who knew Strauss's orchestral writing for oboe thoroughly,
9728-448: The entire Ring Cycle , Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , and Tristan und Isolde . The influence of Wagner's music on Strauss's style was to be profound, but at first his musically conservative father forbade him to study it. Indeed, in the Strauss household, the music of Richard Wagner was viewed with deep suspicion, and it was not until the age of 16 that Strauss was able to obtain a score of Tristan und Isolde . In 1882 he went to
9856-423: The essays of Wagner and the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer . Strauss went on to conduct one of Ritter's operas, and at Strauss's request Ritter later wrote a poem describing the events depicted in Strauss's tone poem Death and Transfiguration . The new influences from Ritter resulted in what is widely regarded as Strauss's first piece to show his mature personality, the tone poem Don Juan (1888), which displays
9984-440: The expressive functions of program music as well as extending its boundaries. Because of his virtuosic use of orchestration, the descriptive power and vividness of these works is extremely marked. He usually employs a large orchestra, often with extra instruments, and he often uses instrumental effects for sharp characterization, such as portraying the bleating of sheep with cuivré brass in Don Quixote . Strauss's handling of form
10112-533: The genre could continue to flourish and grow." Felix Mendelssohn , Robert Schumann and Niels Gade achieved successes with their symphonies, putting at least a temporary stop to the debate as to whether the genre was dead. Nevertheless, composers began to explore the "more compact form" of the concert overture "...as a vehicle within which to blend musical, narrative and pictoral ideas." Examples included Mendelssohn's overtures A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826) and The Hebrides (1830). Between 1845 and 1847,
10240-434: The genre. Liszt's determination to explore and promote the symphonic poem gained him recognition as the genre's inventor. The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt desired to expand single-movement works beyond the concert overture form. The music of overtures is to inspire listeners to imagine scenes, images, or moods; Liszt intended to combine those programmatic qualities with a scale and musical complexity normally reserved for
10368-422: The greatness of the Czech nation while presenting selected episodes and ideas from Czech history. Two recurrent musical themes unify the entire cycle. One theme represents Vyšehrad, the fortress over the river Vltava whose course provides the subject matter for the second (and best-known) work in the cycle; the other is the ancient Czech hymn " Ktož jsú boží bojovníci " ("Ye who are God's warriors"), which unites
10496-535: The ideas of Richard Wagner in unifying ideas of drama and music via the symphonic poem, Wagner gave Liszt's concept only lukewarm support in his 1857 essay On the Symphonic Poems of Franz Liszt , and was later to break entirely with Liszt's Weimar circle over their aesthetic ideals. Composers who developed the symphonic poem after Liszt were mainly Bohemian, Russian, and French; the Bohemians and Russians showed
10624-635: The latter festival his cantata Taillefer was given its world premiere. In 1904 Strauss embarked on his first North American tour, with stops in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, New York City, and Pittsburgh. At Carnegie Hall he conducted the world premiere of his Symphonia Domestica on 21 March 1904 with the Wetzler Symphony Orchestra . He also conducted several other works in collaboration with composer Hermann Hans Wetzler and his orchestra that year at Carnegie Hall, and also performed
10752-481: The length of an entire symphony), they are unlike traditional classical symphonic movements, in that their music is intended to inspire listeners to imagine or consider scenes, images, specific ideas or moods, and not (necessarily) to focus on following traditional patterns of musical form such as sonata form . This intention to inspire listeners was a direct consequence of Romanticism , which encouraged literary, pictorial and dramatic associations in music. According to
10880-454: The librettist and poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal . These operas included Elektra (1909), Der Rosenkavalier (1911), Ariadne auf Naxos (1912, rev. 1916), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919), Die ägyptische Helena (1928), and Arabella (1933). While all of these works remain part of the opera repertoire, his opera Der Rosenkavalier is generally considered his finest achievement. During this time he continued to work internationally as
11008-611: The main theme." Jean Sibelius showed a great affinity for the form, writing well over a dozen symphonic poems and numerous shorter works. These works span his entire career, from En saga (1892) to Tapiola (1926), expressing more clearly than anything else his identification to Finland and its mythology. The Kalevala provided ideal episodes and texts for musical setting; this coupled with Sibelius's natural aptitude for symphonic writing allowed him to write taut, organic structures for many of these works, especially Tapiola (1926). Pohjola's Daughter (1906), which Sibelius called
11136-515: The music of banned composers such as Gustav Mahler and Claude Debussy . In 1933, Strauss wrote in his private notebook: I consider the Streicher –Goebbels Jew-baiting as a disgrace to German honour, as evidence of incompetence—the basest weapon of untalented, lazy mediocrity against a higher intelligence and greater talent. Meanwhile, far from being an admirer of Strauss's work, Joseph Goebbels maintained expedient cordiality with Strauss only for
11264-511: The opening movement of classical symphonies. The opening movement, with its interplay of contrasting themes under sonata form , was normally considered the most important part of the symphony. To achieve his objectives, Liszt needed a more flexible method of developing musical themes than sonata form would allow, but one that would preserve the overall unity of a musical composition. Liszt found his method through two compositional practices, which he used in his symphonic poems. The first practice
11392-424: The opening of Also sprach Zarathustra , or striding, vigorous arpeggios to represent the manly qualities of his heroes. His love themes are honeyed and chromatic and generally richly scored, and he is often fond of the warmth and serenity of diatonic harmony as balm after torrential chromatic textures, notably at the end of Don Quixote , where the solo cello has a surpassingly beautiful D major transformation of
11520-496: The opera, and it was halted after three performances and subsequently banned by the Third Reich . On 17 June 1935, Strauss wrote a letter to Stefan Zweig, in which he stated: Do you believe I am ever, in any of my actions, guided by the thought that I am 'German'? Do you suppose Mozart was consciously 'Aryan' when he composed? I recognise only two types of people: those who have talent and those who have none. This letter to Zweig
11648-452: The outbreak of war in 1939. The two men collaborated on two more operas which proved to be Strauss's last: Die Liebe der Danae (1940) and Capriccio (1942). When his Jewish daughter-in-law Alice was placed under house arrest in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1938, Strauss used his connections in Berlin, including opera-house General Intendant Heinz Tietjen , to secure her safety. He drove to
11776-478: The past; and the tone poem's structural innovation and spontaneity, identifiable poetic content and inventive sonority. However, the stylistic distinction between symphony, "fantasy" and tone poem in Sibelius's late works becomes blurred since ideas first sketched for one piece ended up in another. One of Sibelius's greatest works, Finlandia , focuses on Finnish independence. He wrote it in 1901 and added choral lyrics –
11904-422: The patriotic group of composers known as The Five or The Mighty Handful, went so far as to hail Mikhail Glinka 's Kamarinskaya as "a prototype of Russian descriptive music"; despite the fact that Glinka himself denied the piece had any program, he called the work, which is based entirely on Russian folk music, "picturesque music." In this Glinka was influenced by French composer Hector Berlioz , whom he met in
12032-553: The penchant shown by the Franck circle for mythological subjects. Claude Debussy 's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1892–94), intended initially as part of a triptych , is, in the composer's words, "a very free ... succession of settings through which the Faun's desires and dreams move in the afternoon heat." Paul Dukas ' The Sorcerer's Apprentice follows the narrative vein of symphonic poem, while Maurice Ravel 's La valse (1921)
12160-465: The philosophical framework of Hofmannsthal's libretti, and instead embrace a modern domestic comedy to Hofmannsthal's chagrin. The work proved to be a success. At the outbreak of World War I Strauss was invited to sign the Manifesto of German artists and intellectuals supporting the German role in the conflict. Several colleagues, including Max Reinhardt , signed, but Strauss refused, and his response
12288-617: The position but to remain apolitical, a decision which would eventually become untenable. He wrote to his family, "I made music under the Kaiser , and under Ebert . I'll survive under this one as well." He later wrote in his journal: In November 1933, the minister Goebbels nominated me president of the Reichsmusikkammer without obtaining my prior agreement. I was not consulted. I accepted this honorary office because I hoped that I would be able to do some good and prevent worse misfortunes, if from now onwards German musical life were going to be, as it
12416-552: The potential of the form as a vehicle for the nationalist ideas fomenting in their respective countries at this time. Bedřich Smetana visited Liszt in Weimar in the summer of 1857, where he heard the first performances of the Faust Symphony and the symphonic poem Die Ideale . Influenced by Liszt's efforts, Smetana began a series of symphonic works based on literary subjects— Richard III (1857–58), Wallenstein's Camp (1858–59) and Hakon Jarl (1860–61). A piano work dating from
12544-443: The practice of French composer Hector Berlioz in his choral symphony Roméo et Juliette than that of Liszt. By doing so, Hugh Macdonald writes, Smetana followed "a straightforward pattern of musical description". Smetana's set of six symphonic poems published under the general title of Má vlast became his greatest achievements in the genre. Composed between 1872 and 1879, the cycle embodies its composer's personal belief in
12672-424: The premiere of his tone poem Death and Transfiguration in 1890. Both of these works, along with the earlier Burleske , became internationally known and established him as a leading modernist composer. He also had much success as a conductor in Weimar, particularly with the symphonic poems of Liszt and an uncut production of Tristan und Isolde in 1892. In the summer of 1894 Strauss made his conducting debut at
12800-474: The same period, Macbeth a čarodějnice ( Macbeth and the Witches , 1859), is similar in scope but bolder in style. Musicologist John Clapham writes that Smetana planned these works as "a compact series of episodes" drawn from their literary sources "and approached them as a dramatist rather than as a poet or philosopher." He used musical themes to represent specific characters; in this manner he more closely followed
12928-436: The same subject orchestrally. The musicologist Mark Bonds suggests that in the second quarter of the 19th century, the future of the symphonic genre seemed uncertain. While many composers continued to write symphonies during the 1820s and '30s, "there were a growing sense that these works were aesthetically far inferior to Beethoven 's.... The real question was not so much whether symphonies could still be written, but whether
13056-421: The senior conductor at the house, was often ill and Strauss was required to step in at the last minute to conduct performance for operas which he had never rehearsed. This caused problems for him, the singers, and the orchestra. During this time, Strauss did find much more enjoyable conducting work outside Munich in Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig. In the latter city he met and befriended the composer Gustav Mahler in
13184-414: The sequence of events and the course of the musical action. Clapham adds that while Dvořák may follow the narrative complexities of The Golden Spinning Wheel too closely, "the lengthy repetition at the beginning of The Noon Witch shows Dvořák temporarily rejecting a precise representation of the ballad for the sake of an initial musical balance". The fifth poem, Heroic Song , is the only one not to have
13312-690: The singing of the famous trio from Rosenkavalier , "each singer broke down in tears and dropped out of the ensemble, but they recovered themselves and we all ended together". Strauss's wife, Pauline de Ahna, died eight months later on 13 May 1950 at the age of 88. Strauss himself declared in 1947 with characteristic self-deprecation: "I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer." The Canadian pianist Glenn Gould described Strauss in 1962 as "the greatest musical figure who has lived in this century". Some of Strauss's first compositions were solo instrumental and chamber works. These pieces include early compositions for piano solo in
13440-650: The summer of 1844. At least three of the Five fully embraced the symphonic poem. Mily Balakirev 's Tamara (1867–82) richly evokes the fairy-tale orient and, while remaining closely based on the poem by Mikhail Lermontov , remains well-paced and full of atmosphere. Balakirev's other two symphonic poems, In Bohemia (1867, 1905) and Russia (1884 version) lack the same narrative content; they are actually looser collections of national melodies and were originally written as concert overtures. Macdonald calls Modest Mussorgsky 's Night on Bald Mountain and Alexander Borodin 's In
13568-434: The term symphonic poem is generally accepted to refer to orchestral works. A symphonic poem may stand on its own (as do those of Richard Strauss ), or it can be part of a series combined into a symphonic suite or cycle. For example, The Swan of Tuonela (1895) is a tone poem from Jean Sibelius 's Lemminkäinen Suite , and Vltava ( The Moldau ) by Bedřich Smetana is part of the six-work cycle Má vlast . While
13696-478: The terms symphonic poem and tone poem have often been used interchangeably, some composers such as Richard Strauss and Jean Sibelius have preferred the latter term for their works. The first use of the German term Tondichtung (tone poem) appears to have been by Carl Loewe , applied not to an orchestral work but to his piece for piano solo, Mazeppa , Op. 27 (1828), based on the poem of that name by Lord Byron , and written twelve years before Liszt treated
13824-635: The various sites he was seeing along with tonal impressions that went with those descriptions. These he communicated in a letter to his mother, and they ultimately were used as the beginning of his first tone poem, Aus Italien (1886). Shortly after Strauss assumed his opera conducting duties in Munich, Ritter himself moved to the city in September 1886. For the next three years the two men would meet regularly, often joined by Thuille and Anton Seidl , to discuss music, particularly Wagner and Liszt, and discuss poetry, literature, and philosophy. Strauss's tenure at
13952-483: The work may actually be closer to a concert overture in its relatively stringent use of sonata form . It was the suggestion of the work's musical mid-wife, Balakirev, to base Romeo structurally on his King Lear , a tragic overture in sonata form after the example of Beethoven 's overtures.) R.W.S. Mendl, writing in The Musical Quarterly , states that Tchaikovsky was by temperament peculiarly well-fitted for
14080-521: The writings of Arthur Schopenhauer , Wagner, and Friedrich von Hausegger. All of this together gave a new aesthetic anchor to Strauss which first became evident in his embrace of the tone poem genre. After leaving his post in Meiningen in 1886, Strauss spent several weeks traveling throughout Italy before assuming a new post as third conductor at the Bavarian State Opera (then known as the Munich Hofoper). While traveling he wrote down descriptions of
14208-408: The young composer's Serenade (Op. 7) for wind instruments, composed when he was only 16 years of age. Strauss learned the art of conducting by observing Bülow in rehearsal. Bülow was very fond of the young man, and Strauss considered him as his greatest conducting mentor, often crediting him as teaching him "the art of interpretation". Notably, under Bülow's baton he made his first major appearance as
14336-547: Was Salome , which used a libretto by Hedwig Lachmann that was a German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde . This was followed by several critically acclaimed operas with librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal : Elektra , Der Rosenkavalier , Ariadne auf Naxos , Die Frau ohne Schatten , Die ägyptische Helena , and Arabella . His last operas, Daphne , Friedenstag , Die Liebe der Danae and Capriccio used libretti written by Joseph Gregor ,
14464-401: Was cyclic form , a procedure established by Beethoven in which certain movements are not only linked but actually reflect one another's content. Liszt took Beethoven's practice one step further, combining separate movements into a single-movement cyclic structure. Many of Liszt's mature works follow this pattern, of which Les préludes is one of the best-known examples. The second practice
14592-428: Was thematic transformation , a type of variation in which one theme is changed, not into a related or subsidiary theme but into something new, separate and independent. As musicologist Hugh Macdonald wrote of Liszt's works in this genre, the intent was "to display the traditional logic of symphonic thought;" that is, to display a comparable complexity in the interplay of musical themes and tonal 'landscape' to those of
14720-574: Was 68, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power . Strauss never joined the Nazi Party, and studiously avoided Nazi forms of greeting . For reasons of expediency, however, he was initially drawn into cooperating with the early Nazi regime in the hope that Hitler—an ardent Wagnerian and music lover who had admired Strauss's work since viewing Salome in 1907—would promote German art and culture. Strauss's need to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law and Jewish grandchildren also motivated his behavior, in addition to his determination to preserve and conduct
14848-473: Was a German composer and conductor best known for his tone poems and operas . Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt . Along with Gustav Mahler , he represents the late flowering of German Romanticism , in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style. Strauss's compositional output began in 1870 when he
14976-407: Was a great source of inspiration to him. Throughout his life, from his earliest songs to the final Four Last Songs of 1948, he preferred the soprano voice to all others, and all his operas contain important soprano roles. In Weimar she created the role of Freihild in Strauss's first opera, Guntram , in 1894. The opera was received with mixed reviews in Weimar, but its later production in Munich
15104-410: Was chiefly admired for his interpretations of the works of Liszt, Mozart, and Wagner in addition to his own works. A conducting disciple of Hans von Bülow , Strauss began his conducting career as Bülow's assistant with the Meiningen Court Orchestra in 1883. After Bülow resigned in 1885, Strauss served as that orchestra's primary conductor for five months before being appointed to the conducting staff of
15232-440: Was in the army unit, and asked Strauss to compose an oboe concerto. Initially dismissive of the idea, Strauss completed this late work, his Oboe Concerto , before the end of the year. The metaphor " Indian summer " has been used by journalists, biographers, and music critics, notably Norman Del Mar in 1964, to describe Strauss's late creative upsurge from 1942 to the end of his life. The events of World War II seemed to bring
15360-528: Was intercepted by the Gestapo and sent to Hitler. Strauss was subsequently dismissed from his post as Reichsmusikkammer president in 1935. The 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics nevertheless used Strauss's Olympische Hymne , which he had composed in 1934. Strauss's seeming relationship with the Nazis in the 1930s attracted criticism from some noted musicians, including Toscanini, who in 1933 had said, "To Strauss
15488-441: Was just six years old and lasted until his death nearly eighty years later. His first tone poem to achieve wide acclaim was Don Juan , and this was followed by other lauded works of this kind, including Death and Transfiguration , Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks , Also sprach Zarathustra , Don Quixote , Ein Heldenleben , Symphonia Domestica , and An Alpine Symphony . His first opera to achieve international fame
15616-555: Was less concerned than other countries with nationalism, it still had a well-established tradition of narrative and illustrative music reaching back to Berlioz and Félicien David . For this reason, French composers were attracted to the poetic elements of the symphonic poem. In fact, César Franck had written an orchestral piece based on Hugo's poem Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne before Liszt did so himself as his first numbered symphonic poem. The symphonic poem came into vogue in France in
15744-403: Was met with scorn and was Strauss's first major failure. In spite of the failure of his first opera, Strauss's tenure in Weimar brought about several important successes for his career. His tone poem Don Juan premiered in Weimar on 11 November 1889 to tremendous critical response, and the work quickly brought him international fame and success. This was followed by another lauded achievement,
15872-479: Was preparing for war, they presented Friedenstag ( Peace Day ), a one-act opera set in a besieged fortress during the Thirty Years' War . The work is essentially a hymn to peace and a thinly veiled criticism of the Third Reich. With its contrasts between freedom and enslavement, war and peace, light and dark, this work has a close affinity with Beethoven 's Fidelio . Productions of the opera ceased shortly after
16000-421: Was principal conductor of the Berlin State Opera from 1898 to 1913. From 1919 to 1924 he was principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera , and in 1920 he co-founded the Salzburg Festival . In addition to these posts, Strauss was a frequent guest conductor in opera houses and with orchestras internationally. In 1933 Strauss was appointed to two important positions in the musical life of Nazi Germany : head of
16128-494: Was recorded with approval by the French critic Romain Rolland in his diary for October 1914: "Declarations about war and politics are not fitting for an artist, who must give his attention to his creations and his works." In 1924 Strauss's son Franz married Alice von Grab-Hermannswörth, daughter of a Jewish industrialist, in a Roman Catholic ceremony. Franz and Alice had two sons, Richard and Christian. In March 1933, when Strauss
16256-456: Was said, "reorganized" by amateurs and ignorant place-seekers. Strauss privately scorned Goebbels and called him "a pipsqueak". However, in 1933 he dedicated an orchestral song, " Das Bächlein " ("The Little Brook"), to Goebbels, to gain his cooperation in extending German music copyright laws from 30 years to 50 years. Also in 1933, he replaced Arturo Toscanini as director of the Bayreuth Festival after Toscanini had resigned in protest against
16384-462: Was written closest in style to Liszt. The other three concentrate on some physical movement—spinning, riding, dancing—which is portrayed in musical terms. He had previously experimented with thematic transformation in his program overture Spartacus ; he would later use it in his Fourth Piano Concerto and Third Symphony . After Saint-Saëns came Vincent d'Indy . While d'Indy called his trilogy Wallenstein (1873, 1879–81) "three symphonic overtures",
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