Richard Strauss—a new name to conjure with in music! His banner is borne by a band of enthusiasts like those who, many years ago, carried the flag of Wagner to the front. “Did not Wagner put a full stop after the word ‘music’?” some will ask in surprise. “Did he not strike the final note? Are the ‘Ring,’ ‘Tristan’ and ‘Parsifal’ not to be succeeded by an eternal pause? Is there something still to be achieved in music as in other arts and sciences?”

Something new certainly has been achieved by Richard Strauss. It forms neither a continuation of Wagner nor an opposition to Wagner. It has nothing to do with Wagner, beyond that Strauss appropriates whatever in the progression of art the latest master has a right to take from his predecessors. Strauss is, in fact, one of the most original and individual of composers.

He has been a student, not a copyist, of Wagner. Thus, where others who have sat at the feet of the Bayreuth master have written poor imitations of Wagner, and have therefore failed even to continue the school, giving only feeble echoes of its great master, Strauss has struck out for himself. With a mastery of 208 every technical resource, acquired by deep and patient study, he has given wholly new value and importance to a form of art entirely different from the music-drama. The music of the average modern Wagner disciple sounds not like Wagner, but like Wagner and water. Richard Strauss sounds like Richard Strauss.

One reason for this is that his art work, like Wagner’s, has an independent intellectual reason for being. Let me not for one moment be understood as belittling Wagner, in order to magnify Strauss. Wagner is the one creator of an art-form who also seems destined to remain its greatest exponent. Other creators of art-forms have been mere pioneers, leaving to those who have come after them the development and rounding out of what with them were experiments. The story of the sonata form may be said to have begun with Philipp Emanuel Bach and to have been “continued in our next” to Beethoven, with “supplements” ever since. The music-drama had its tentative beginnings in “The Flying Dutchman,” its consummation in “Parsifal.” The years from 1843 to 1882 lay between, but the music-drama was guided ever by the same hand, the master hand of Richard Wagner. No, it would be self-defeating folly to make Wagner appear less in order to have Strauss appear more.

Originator of the Tone Poem.

Nor does Richard Strauss require such tactics. He has made three excursions into music-drama and he may make others. But his fame, at present, rests mainly upon what he has accomplished as an instrumental composer, 209 and in the self-created realm of the Tone Poem. Tone poem is a new term in music. It stands for something that outstrips the symphonic poem of Liszt, something larger both in its boundaries and in its intellectual and musical scope. Strauss does not limit himself by the word symphonic. He leaves himself free to give full range to his ideas. A composer of “program music,” his works are so stupendous in scope that the word symphonic would have hampered him. His “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (“Thus Spake Zarathustra”) and “Ein Heldenleben” (“A Hero’s Life”) are not symphonic poems, but tone poems of enormous proportions. These, his last two instrumental productions, together with the growing familiarity of the musical public with his beautiful and eloquent songs, established his reputation in this country. To-day, a Strauss work on a program means as much to the musically elect as a Wagner work meant a quarter of a century ago. In fact, to advanced musicians, to those who are not content to rest upon what has been achieved, but are ready to welcome further serious effort, Strauss’s works form the latest great utterance in music. Let me repeat verbatim a conversation that occurred on a recent rainy night, the date of an important concert.

He: “Are you going to the concert to-night?”

She: (Looking out and seeing that it still is raining hard) “Do they play anything by Richard Strauss?”

He: “Not to-night.”

She: “Then I’m not going.”

This woman could meet the most enthusiastic admirer of Beethoven or Wagner on his own ground. But when she heard “Ein Heldenleben” under Emil 210 Paur’s baton at a concert of the New York Philharmonic Society, she heard what she had been waiting twenty years for—something new in music that also was something great; something that was not merely an imitation of what she had heard a hundred times before, but something which pointed the way to untraveled paths. It always is woman who throws the first rose at the feet of genius.

Not a Juggler with the Orchestra.

One first looks at Richard Strauss in mere amazement at the size of what he has produced. “Thus Spake Zarathustra” lasts thirty-three minutes, “A Hero’s Life” forty-five—considerable lengths for orchestral works. This initial sense of “bigness,” as such, having worn off, one becomes aware of marvellous tone combinations and orchestral effects. Listening again, one discovers that these daring instrumental combinations have not been entered into merely for the sake of juggling with the orchestra, but because the composer, being a modern of moderns, has the most modern message in music to deliver, and, in order to deliver it, has developed the modern orchestra to a state of efficiency and versatility of tonal expression beyond any of his predecessors. Richard Strauss scores, in the most casual manner, an octave higher than Beethoven dared go with the violins. Except in the “Egmont” overture, Beethoven did not carry the violins higher than F above the staff. What should have been higher he wrote an octave lower. All the strings in the Richard Strauss orchestra are scored correspondingly 211 high. But this is not done as a mere fad. What Richard Strauss accomplishes with the strings is not merely queer or bizarre. What he seeks and obtains is genuine original musical effects. Often the highest register is used by him in a few of the strings only, because, for certain polyphonic effects—the weaving and interweaving of various themes—he divides and subdivides all the strings into numerous groups. For the same reason, he has regularly added four or five hitherto rarely used instruments to the woodwind and scores, regularly, for eight horns, besides employing from four to five trumpets.

While he has increased the technical difficulties of every instrument, what he requires of them is not impossible. He does, indeed, call for first-rate artists in his orchestra; but so did Wagner as compared with Beethoven. He knows every instrument thoroughly, for he has taken lessons on all; and, therefore, when he is striving for new instrumental effects he is not putting problems which cannot be legitimately solved. His “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks” makes, possibly, the greatest demand of all his works on an orchestra. But, if properly played, it is one of the most bizarre and amusing scherzos in the repertoire. In his “Don Quixote,” he has gone outside the list of orchestral instruments; and in the scene where Don Quixote has his tilt with the windmill, he has introduced a regular theatrical wind-machine. And why not? The effect to be produced justifies the means. There is an À capella chorus by Strauss for sixteen voices. These are not divided into two double quartets, or into four quartets, but the composition actually 212 is scored in sixteen parts. He shrinks from no musical problem.

Not Mere Bulk and Noise.

When “A Hero’s Life” was produced in New York it was given at a public rehearsal and concert of the Philharmonic. It made such a profound impression—it was recognized as music, not as mere bulk and noise—that it had to be repeated at a following public rehearsal and concert, thus having the honor of four consecutive performances by the same society in one season. Previous performances of Strauss’s works, mainly by the Chicago Orchestra, under Thomas, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, had begun to direct public attention to this composer. But the “Heldenleben” performances by the Philharmonic created something of a sensation. They made the “hit” to which the public unconsciously had been working up for several seasons. Large as are the dimensions of “A Hero’s Life,” Richard Strauss had chosen a subject that made a very direct appeal. Despite its wealth of polyphony and theme combination, the score told, without a word of synopsis, a clear intelligible story of a hero’s material victory, followed by a greater moral one. It placed the public on a human, familiar footing with a composer whom previously they had regarded with more awe than interest. Here was music interesting as mere music, but all the more interesting because it had an intellectual message to convey.

Life and Truth.

What is the difference between classical and modern music? Write a chapter or a book on it, and the difference still remains just this: Classical music is the expression of beauty; modern music the expression of life and truth. Modern music seems entering upon a new era with Strauss, which does not necessarily exclude beauty. It is beginning to illustrate itself, so to speak, like the author-artist who can both write and draw. To-day, music not only expresses truth, but represents it pictorially. How long will the time be in coming when a composer will wave his bÂton, the orchestra strike a chord—and we be not only listeners but also beholders, hearing the chord, and seeing at the same time its image floating above the orchestra?

In his “Melomaniacs,” the most remarkable collection of musical stories I have read, Mr. Huneker has a tale called “A Piper of Dreams,” the most advanced piece of musical fiction I know of. This piper of dreams produces music which is seen. “Do you know why you like it?” Mr. Huneker asked me, when I told him how intensely I admired the story. “Because,” he continued, “the hero of the story is a Richard Strauss.”

Of course, this brilliantly written story was a daring incursion into a seemingly impossible future. Yet it points a tendency. When shall we have music that can be seen? Considering how closely related are the laws of acoustics and optics, is a “Piper of Dreams” so visionary? Who knows but that the music of the future may be visible sound—the work of a piper of 214 dreams? Sometimes, when listening to Strauss, I think Mr. Huneker’s Piper is tuning up.

Richard Strauss’s tone poems are large in plan. In fact they are colossal. They show him to be a man of great intellectual activity, as well as an inspired composer. The latter, of course, is the test by which a musical work stands or falls. No matter how intellectually it is planned, if it is inadequate musically it fails. But if it is musically inspired, it gains vastly in effect when it rests on a brain basis.

Literally Tone Dramas.

That Richard Strauss is the most significant figure in the musical world to-day seems to me too patent to admit of discussion. The only question to be considered is, how has he become so? The question is best answered by showing what a Richard Strauss tone poem is. Take “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and “A Hero’s Life.” Without going into an elaborate discussion I must insist that, to consider Richard Strauss as in any way a development from Berlioz or Liszt, shows a deplorable unfamiliarity with his works. Berlioz wrote program music. Liszt wrote program music. Richard Strauss writes program music. But this point of resemblance is wholly superficial. Berlioz admittedly strove to adhere to the orthodox symphonic form. Liszt aptly named his own productions “symphonic poems.” They are much freer in form than Berlioz’s, and possibly pointed the way to the Richard Strauss tone poem. But when we examine the musical kernel, the difference at once is apparent. Polyphony, 215 that is, the simultaneous interweaving of many themes, was foreign to Berlioz and Liszt. Their style is mainly homophonic. Richard Strauss is a polyphonic composer second not even to Wagner, whose system of leading motives in his music-dramas made his scores such marvellous polyphonic structures. Such, too, are the scores of Richard Strauss’s tone poems. None but a master of polyphony could have attempted to express in music what Richard Strauss has expressed. For are not his tone poems literally tone dramas?

It was like a man of great intellectual activity, such as Richard Strauss is, to select for musical illustration the Faust of modern literature—Nietzsche’s “Zarathustra.” The composer became interested in Nietzsche’s works in 1892, when he was writing his music-drama, “Guntram.” The full fruition of his study of this philosopher’s works is “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” But this is not an attempt to set Nietzsche to music, not an effort to express a system of philosophy through sound. It is rather the musical portrayal of a quest—a being longing to solve the problems of life, finding at the end of his varied pilgrimage that which he had left at the beginning, Nature deep and inscrutable.

Musically, the great fortissimo outburst in C major, which, at the beginning of the work, greets the seeker on the mountain-top with the glories of the sunrise, is the symbol of Nature. The seeker descends the mountain. He pursues the quest amid many surroundings, among all sorts and conditions of men. He experiences joy, passion, remorse. In wisdom, perchance, lies the final solution of the problem of life. But the 216 emptiness of “wisdom” is depicted by the composer with the keenest satire in a learned, yet dry, five-part fugue. The seeker’s varied experiences form as many divisions of the tone poem. There is even a waltz theme. Unending joy! Therein he may reach the end of his quest.

But hark! a sombre strophe, followed twelve times by the even fainter stroke of a bell! Then a theme winging its flight on the highest register of modern instrumentation, until it seems to rise over the orchestra and vanish into thin air. It is the soul of the seeker, his earthly quest ended; while the theme which greeted him at sunrise on the mountain-top resounds in the orchestral depths, the symbol of Nature, still mysterious, still inscrutable.

An Intellectual Force in Music.

Even this brief synopsis suggests that “Zarathustra” is planned on a large scale. It presupposes an intellectual grasp of the subject on the composer’s part. In its choice, in the selection and rejection of details and in outlining his scheme, Richard Strauss shows that he has thoroughly assimilated Nietzsche. But, at a certain point, the musician in Richard Strauss asserts himself above the litterateur. “Thus Spake Zarathustra” was not intended for a preachment, save indirectly. From what occurs during that vain quest, from the last deep mysterious chord of the Nature theme, let the listener draw his own conclusion. In the last analysis, “Thus Spake Zarathustra” is not a philosophical treatise, but a tone poem. In the last analysis, 217 Richard Strauss is not a philosopher, but a musician.

“A Hero’s Life” is another work of large plan. Like “Zarathustra,” it derives its importance as an art-work from its eloquence as a musical composition. With a musical work, no matter how intellectual or dramatic its foundation, its test ever will be its value as pure music. Richard Wagner’s theories would have fallen like a house of cards, had not his music been eloquent and beautiful. But as his music gained wonderfully in added eloquence and beauty by induction from its intellectual content, so does Strauss’s. The fact is, music is music, while philosophies come and go. Yesterday it was Schopenhauer; to-day it is Nietzsche; to-morrow it will be another. Doubtless, Wagner thought his “Ring” was Schopenhauer’s “Negation of the Will to Live” set to music. Possibly, Richard Strauss thought Nietzsche looked out between the bars of “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” In point of fact, neither Wagner nor Richard Strauss incorporated their favorite philosophers in their music. Wagner may have derived his inspiration from his reading of Schopenhauer, and Richard Strauss from Nietzsche, for one mind inspires another. But the real result, both in Wagner and Strauss, was great music.

This is made clear by Strauss’s “A Hero’s Life.” Like “Zarathustra,” it would be effective as music without a line of programmatic explanation. The latter simply adds to its effectiveness by giving it the further interest of “fiction” and ethical import. In “A Hero’s Life” we hear (and see, if you like) the hero himself, 218 his jealous adversaries, the woman whose love consoles him, the battle in which he wins his greatest worldly triumph, his mission of peace, the world’s indifference and the final flight of his soul toward the empyrean. All this is depicted musically with the greatest eloquence. The battlefield scene is a stupendous massing of orchestral forces. On the other hand, the amorous episode, entitled “The Hero’s Helpmate,” is impassioned and charming.

In the world’s indifference to the hero’s mission of peace, there is little doubt that Strauss was indulging in a retrospect of his own struggles for recognition. For here are heard numerous reminiscences of his earlier works—his tone poems, “Don Juan,” “Death and Transfiguration,” “Macbeth,” “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks,” “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” “Don Quixote”; his music-drama, “Guntram”; and his song, “Dream During Twilight.” These reminiscences give “A Hero’s Life” the same autobiographical interest as attaches to Wagner’s “Meistersinger.”

Tribute to Wagner.

Strauss pays a tribute to Wagner in the one-act opera, “Feuersnot” (“Fire Famine”). According to the old legend on which this Sing-gedicht (song-poem) is founded, a young maiden has offended her lover. But the lover being a magician, casts a spell over the town, causing the extinction of all fire, bringing cold and darkness upon the entire place, until the maiden relents and smiles again upon him, when the spell is lifted and the fires once more burn brightly. The 219 young lover, Kunrad, in rebuking the people of the city, says:

Accompanying these lines, Strauss introduces themes from Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung.” Undoubtedly “Richard the Master,” in the above lines, is Richard Wagner.

While Mr. Paur was not the first orchestral leader who has played Strauss’s music in this country, he may justly be regarded as Strauss’s prophet in New York at least. Not only do we owe to him the performances of “A Hero’s Life,” which definitely “created” Strauss here, but it was he who brought forward “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” when he was conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As long ago as 1889, when Mr. Paur was conductor at Mannheim, he invited Strauss to direct his symphony in F minor there. Strauss accepted and also brought with him his just completed “Macbeth,” asking to be allowed to try it over with the orchestra, as he wanted to hear it—a request which was readily granted. Afterward, at Mr. Paur’s house, Strauss’s piano quartet was played, with the composer himself at the piano and Mr. Paur at the violin. It is not surprising that when Mr. Paur came over here as the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he championed Richard Strauss’s work, continued to do so after he became conductor of the New York Philharmonic Society, and probably still does as conductor of the Pittsburg Orchestra.

Strauss has become such an important figure in the 220 world of music that it is interesting to note what has been done to bring his work before the American public. Theodore Thomas, with the artistic liberality which he has always displayed toward every serious effort in music, produced Strauss’s symphony in F minor, which bears date 1883, as early as December 13, 1884, with the New York Philharmonic Society. It was the first performance of this work anywhere. Strauss was not, however, heard again at the concerts of this organization until January, 1892, when Seidl brought out “Death and Transfiguration.”

After he became conductor of the Chicago Orchestra, Thomas gave many performances of Richard Strauss’s works—in 1895, the prelude to “Guntram,” “Death and Transfiguration” and “Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks”; in 1897, “Don Juan” and “Thus Spake Zarathustra”; in 1899, “Don Quixote” and the symphonic fantasia, “Italy”; in 1900, “A Hero’s Life” (the first performance in this country) and the “Serenade” for wind instruments; in 1902, “Macbeth” (first performance in this country) and the “Feuersnot” fragment. Several of these works, besides those noted, had their first performance in this country by the Chicago Orchestra, and several have had repeated performances.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra also has a fine record as regards the performance of Richard Strauss’s works. Nikisch, Paur, and Gericke are the conductors under whom these performances have been given. Several of the works have been played repeatedly not only in Boston, but in other cities where this famous orchestra gives concerts.

Richard Straussiana.

As data regarding Strauss’s life, at the disposal of English readers, are both scant and scattered, it may not be amiss to tell here something of his career. He was born on June 11, 1864, in Munich, where his father, Franz Strauss, played the French-horn in the Royal Orchestra, and was noted for his remarkable proficiency on the instrument. The elder Strauss lived long enough to watch with pride his son’s growing fame. Richard began to play the piano when he was four years old. At the age of six he heard some children singing around a Christmas tree. “I can compose something like that,” he said, and he produced unaided a three-part song. When he went to school, his mother by chance put covers of music paper on his books. As a result, he occupied much of his time composing on this paper, and during a French lesson sketched out the scherzo of a string quartet which has been published as his Opus 2. While he was still at school, he composed a symphony in D minor. This was played by the Royal Orchestra under Levi. When, in response to calls for the composer, Richard came out, some one in the audience asked: “What has that boy to do with the symphony?” “Oh, he’s only the composer,” was the reply. The year before (1880), the Royal Opera prima donna, Meysenheim, had publicly sung three of his songs.

During his advanced school years, his piano lessons continued, he received lessons in the violin, and went through a severe course in composition with the Royal Kapellmeister, Meyer. In 1882, he attended the University 222 of Munich. His “Serenade” for wind instruments, composed at this time, attracted the attention of Hans von BÜlow, under whom he studied for a while at Raff’s conservatory in Frankfort. BÜlow invited him to Meiningen as co-director of the orchestra, and when in November, 1885, BÜlow resigned as conductor, Strauss became his successor, remaining there, however, only till April, 1886. His symphonic fantasia, “Italy,” had its origin through a trip to Rome and Naples during this year. In August, 1886, he was appointed assistant conductor to Levi and Fischer at the Munich Opera, where he remained until July, 1889, when he became conductor at Weimar. In 1892, he almost died from an attack of pneumonia, and on his recovery took a long trip through Greece, Egypt and Sicily. It was on this tour that he wrote and composed “Guntram,” which was brought out at Weimar in May, 1894. After the first performance, he announced his engagement to the singer of Freihild in “Guntram,” Pauline de Ahna, the daughter of a Bavarian general. The same year he returned to Munich as conductor, remaining there until 1899, when he became one of the conductors at the Berlin Opera, which position he still holds. He is one of the “star” conductors of Europe, receiving invitations to conduct concerts in many cities, including Brussels, Moscow, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, London and Paris; and his American tour was a memorable one. He is a man of untiring industry. It is said that he worked no less than half a year on “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” and that the writing of his scores is a model of beauty.

Strauss occupies a commanding position in the world 223 of music. He has achieved it through a remarkable combination of musical technique and inspiration coupled with rare industry. His ideals are of the highest. His intellectual activity is great. He seems a man of calm and noble poise, of broad horizon. It would be presumption to speak of “expectations” as to one who has accomplished so much. For the great achievements already to his credit, and among these “Salome” surely must be included, are the best promise for the future.