There are two ways of considering this tone poem: to say that it is a
fantasia, free in form and development—the quotations from the poem are
enough to show the mood and the purposes of the composer; or to discuss
the character of Lenau’s hero, and then follow foreign commentators who
give significance to every melodic phrase and find deep, esoteric
meaning in every modulation. No doubt Strauss himself would be content
with the verses of Lenau and his own music, for he is a man not without
humor, and on more than one occasion has slyly smiled at his prying or
pontifical interpreters.
Strauss has particularized his hero among the many that bear the name of
Don Juan, from the old drama of Gabriel Tellez, the cloistered monk who
wrote, under the name of “Tirso de Molina,” _El Burlador de Sevilla y el
Convidado de Piedra_ (first printed in 1634). Strauss’s hero is
specifically the Don Juan of Lenau, not the rakehelly hero of legend and
so many plays, who at the last is undone by the Statue invited by Juan
to supper.
“TOD UND VERKLÄRUNG” (DEATH AND TRANSFIGURATION) TONE POEM, OP. 24
“Death and Transfiguration” is now more old-fashioned than the G minor
symphony of Mozart. The anguish of the dying man, who does not make the
graceful and gracious apology of Charles II on his deathbed, no longer
moves us. His recollections seem sentimental and vapid, while the
trombone passages once considered as terrific, awe-inspiring, are not so
significant as the single horn of Charon in Gluck’s _Alceste_. _Don
Juan_, on the other hand, holds its own by its defiant spirit,
expressing the arrogance of the Don on his triumphant way—by its
dramatic translation into music of the words put by Lenau into his
mouth:
_Exhausted is the fuel;
And on the hearth, the cold is fiercely cruel._
The superb horn phrase should have accompanied the entrance of Lovelace
into the ballroom, one of the most powerful scenes in Richardson’s
long-winded romance.
* * *
This tone poem was composed at Munich in 1888-89.
Hans von Bülow wrote to his wife from Weimar, November 13, 1889:
“Strauss is enormously beloved here. His _Don Juan_ evening before last
had a wholly unheard-of success. Yesterday morning Spitzweg and I were
at his house to hear his new symphonic poem _Tod und Verklärung_—which
has again inspired me with great confidence in his development. It is a
very important work in spite of sundry poor passages, and it is also
refreshing.”
The first performance was from manuscript, under the direction of the
composer, at the fifth concert of the 27th Musicians’ Convention of the
Allgemeine Deutscher Musikverein in the City Theater of Eisenach, June
21, 1890.
The poem is dedicated to Friedrich Rösch, and is scored for three
flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two
bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones,
tuba, a set of three kettledrums, two harps, gong, and strings.
On the flyleaf of the score is a poem in German.
The following literal translation is by William Foster Apthorp:
“In the necessitous little room, dimly lighted by only a candle end,
lies the sick man on his bed. But just now he has wrestled despairingly
with Death. Now he has sunk exhausted into sleep, and one hears only the
soft ticking of the clock on the wall in the room, whose awful silence
gives a foreboding of the nearness of death. Over the sick man’s pale
features plays a sad smile. Dreams he, on the boundary of life, of the
golden time of childhood?
“But death does not long grant sleep and dreams to his victim. Cruelly
he shakes him awake, and the fight begins afresh. Will to live and power
of Death! What frightful wrestling! Neither bears off the victory, and
all is silent once more!
“Sunk back tired of battle, sleepless, as in fever-frenzy the sick man
now sees his life pass before his inner eye, trait by trait and scene by
scene. First the morning red of childhood, shining bright in pure
innocence! Then the youth’s saucier play—exerting and trying his
strength—till he ripens to the man’s fight, and now burns with hot lust
after the higher prizes of life. The one high purpose that has led him
through life was to shape all he saw transfigured into a still more
transfigured form. Cold and sneering, the world sets barrier upon
barrier in the way of his achievement. If he thinks himself near his
goal, a ‘Halt!’ thunders in his ear. ‘Make the barrier thy stirrup! Ever
higher and onward go!’ And so he pushes forward, so he climbs, desists
not from his sacred purpose. What he has ever sought with his heart’s
deepest yearning, he still seeks in his death sweat. Seeks—alas! and
finds it never. Whether he comprehends it more clearly or it grows upon
him gradually, he can yet never exhaust it, cannot complete it in his
spirit. Then clangs the last stroke of Death’s iron hammer, breaks the
earthly body in twain, covers the eye with the night of death.
“But from the heavenly spaces sounds mightily to greet him what he
yearningly sought for here: deliverance from the world, transfiguration
of the world.”
The poem by Ritter is, after all, the most satisfactory explanation of
the music to those that seek eagerly a clew and are not content with the
title. The analysts have been busy with this tone poem as well as the
others of Strauss. Wilhelm Mauke wrote a pamphlet of twenty pages with
twenty-one musical illustrations, and made a delicate distinction
between “Fever” theme No. 1 and “Fever” theme No. 2. Reimann and Brandes
have been more moderate. _Death and Transfiguration_ may be divided into
sections, closely joined, and for each one a portion of the poem may
serve as a motto.
I. _Largo_, C minor, D flat major, 4-4. The chief “Death” motive is a
syncopated figure, _pianissimo_, given to the second violins and violas.
A sad smile steals over the sick man’s face (wood-wind accompanied by
horns and harps), and he thinks of his youth (a simple melody, the
childhood motive, announced by the oboe). These three motives establish
the mood of the introduction.
II. _Allegro molto agitato_, C minor. Death attacks the sick man. There
are harsh double blows in quick succession. What Mauke characterizes as
the “Fever” motive begins in the basses, and wildly dissonant chords
shriek at the end of the climbing motive. There is a mighty _crescendo_,
the chief “Death” motive is heard, the struggle begins (full orchestra,
_fortississimo_). There is a second chromatic and feverish motive, which
appears first in sixteenths, which is bound to a contrasting and
ascending theme that recalls the motive of the struggle. This second
feverish theme goes canonically through the instrument groups. The sick
man sinks exhausted (_ritenuto_). Trombones, violoncellos, and violas
intone even now the beginning of the “Transfiguration” theme, just as
Death is about to triumph. “And again all is still!” The mysterious
“Death” motive knocks.
III. And now the dying man dreams dreams and sees visions (_meno mosso,
ma sempre alla breve_). The “Childhood” motive returns (G major) in
freer form. There is again the joy of youth (oboes, harp, and, bound to
this motive of “Hope” that made him smile before the struggle, the
motive now played by solo viola). The fight of manhood with the world’s
prizes is waged again (B major, full orchestra, _fortissimo_), waged
fiercely. “Halt!” thunders in his ears, and trombones and kettledrums
sound the dread and strangely rhythmed motive of “Death” (drums beaten
with wooden drumsticks). There is contrapuntal elaboration of the “Life
Struggle” and “Childhood” motives. The “Transfiguration” motive is heard
in broader form. The chief “Death” motive and the feverish attack are
again dominating features. Storm and fury of orchestra. There is a wild
series of ascending fifths. Tam-tam and harp knell the soul’s departure.
IV. The “Transfiguration” theme is heard from the horns; strings repeat
the “Childhood” motive. A _crescendo_ leads to the full development of
the “Transfiguration” theme (_moderato_, C major), “World deliverance,
world transfiguration.”
The scoring is as follows: three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two
clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, double bassoon, four horns,
three trumpets, three trombones and bass tuba, kettledrums, tam-tam, two
harps, and strings.
“TILL EULENSPIEGEL’S MERRY PRANKS, AFTER THE OLD-FASHIONED ROGUISH
MANNER—IN RONDO FORM,” OP. 28
_Till Eulenspiegel_ disputes with _Don Juan_ the first position among
the symphonic poems of Strauss. The opening of _Thus Spake Zarathustra_
is colossal in its elemental grandeur; the death music in _Don Quixote_
is incomparably beautiful; there are a few pages in _A Hero’s Life_ that
remind one of Beethoven at his best; the love music in the _Domestic
symphony_ is memorable; but _Till Eulenspiegel_ and _Don Juan_ are
continuously impressive, each in its way, and are free from the
suspicion of effects made for the sake of effect, designed deliberately
to make the bourgeois stare.
The story is medieval and Rabelaisian, and the music is quite as broad
as the tale. Clear motives typify Till, who can be traced from beginning
to end. He “bobs up” (no other term can describe it) through every kind
of repression and persecution; he is saucy and insouciant; he is
comically repentant when at the last he is hanged, and his last faint
squeak is very mock-pathetic.
This hanging is a deviant from the old story in which Till evades his
doom and cheats the executioner. For some time the reviewers were in
doubt as to whether Strauss had given warrant for the execution—which
shows the weak point of “programme music,” for no one ought to have had
any doubts upon the subject after hearing the change of style from
glibness to utter dejection at the end.
* * *
_Till Eulenspiegel’s lustige Streiche, nach alter Schelmenweise—in
Rondoform, für grosses Orchester gesetzt, von Richard Strauss_, was
produced at a Gürznich concert at Cologne, November 5, 1895. It was
composed in 1894-95 at Munich, and the score was completed there, May 6,
1895. The score and parts were published in September, 1895.
There has been dispute concerning the proper translation of the phrase,
_nach alter Schelmenweise_, in the title. Some, and Apthorp was one of
them, translate it “after an old rogue’s tune.” Others will not have
this at all, and prefer “after the old—or old-fashioned—roguish manner,”
or, as Krehbiel suggested, “in the style of old-time waggery,” and this
view is in all probability the sounder. It is hard to twist
_Schelmenweise_ into “rogue’s tune.” _Schelmenstück_, for instance, is
“a knavish trick,” a “piece of roguery.” As Krehbiel well said: “The
reference [_Schelmenweise_] goes, not to the thematic form of the
phrase, but to its structure. This is indicated, not only by the
grammatical form of the phrase but also by the parenthetical
explanation: ‘_in Rondoform_.’ What connection exists between
roguishness, or waggishness, and the rondo form it might be difficult to
explain. The roguish wag in this case is Richard Strauss himself, who,
besides putting the puzzle into his title, refused to provide the
composition with even the smallest explanatory note which might have
given a clue to its contents.” It seems to us that the puzzle in the
title is largely imaginary. There is no need of attributing any intimate
connection between “roguish manner” and “_rondo_ form.”
Till (or Tyll) Eulenspiegel is the hero of an old _Volksbuch_ of the
fifteenth century attributed to Dr. Thomas Murner (1475-1530). Till is
supposed to be a wandering mechanic of Brunswick, who plays all sorts of
tricks, practical jokes—some of them exceedingly coarse—on everybody,
and he always comes out ahead. In the book, Till (or Till Owlglass, as
he is known in the English translation) goes to the gallows, but he
escapes through an exercise of his ready wit and dies peacefully in bed,
playing a sad joke on his heirs, and refusing to lie still and snug in
his grave. Strauss kills him on the scaffold. The German name is said to
find its derivation in an old proverb: “Man sees his own faults as
little as a monkey or an owl recognizes his ugliness in looking into a
mirror.”
When Dr. Franz Wüllner, who conducted the first performance at Cologne,
asked the composer for an explanatory programme of the “poetical intent”
of the piece, Strauss replied: “It is impossible for me to furnish a
programme to _Eulenspiegel_; were I to put into words the thoughts which
its several incidents suggest to me, they would seldom suffice, and
might give rise to offense. Let me leave it, therefore, to my hearers to
crack the hard nut which the Rogue has prepared for them. By way of
helping them to a better understanding, it seems sufficient to point out
the two ‘Eulenspiegel’ motives, which, in the most manifold disguises,
moods, and situations, pervade the whole up to the catastrophe, when,
after he has been condemned to death, Till is strung up to the gibbet.
For the rest, let them guess at the musical joke which a Rogue has
offered them.” Strauss indicated in notation three motives—the opening
theme of the introduction, the horn theme that follows almost
immediately, and the descending interval expressive of condemnation and
the scaffold.
The rondo, dedicated to Dr. Arthur Seidl, is scored for piccolo, three
flutes, three oboes, English horn, small clarinet in E flat, two
clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, double bassoon, four horns
(with the addition of four horns _ad lib._), three trumpets (with three
additional trumpets _ad lib._), three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums,
snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, a watchman’s rattle, strings.
“THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA,” TONE POEM (FREELY AFTER FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE),
OP. 30
Strauss’s huge “machine” has aged. The opening measures are still
stupendous. The “Grave Song” and “Night Song” are not without compelling
beauty, but on the whole, Nietzschian philosophy and music do not dwell
together in harmony. Dismiss the thought of Nietzsche; consider the
music as absolute music, and there is much that is boresome and
inherently cheap, if not vulgar, in spite, or by reason of the bombast
and pretentiousness.
* * *
The full title of this composition is _Also sprach Zarathustra,
Tondichtung_ (_frei nach Friedrich Nietzsche_) _für grosses Orchester_.
Composition was begun at Munich, February 4, 1896, and completed there
August 24, 1896. The first performance was at Frankfort-on-the-Main,
November 27 of the same year. The composer conducted, and also at
Cologne, December 1.
Friedrich Nietzsche conceived the plan to his _Thus Spake Zarathustra: A
Book for All and None_, in August, 1881, as he was walking through the
woods near the Silvaplana Lake in the Engadine and saw a huge tower-like
crag. He completed the first part in February, 1883, at Rapallo, near
Genoa; he wrote the second part in Sils Maria in June and July, the
third part in the following winter at Nice, and the fourth part, not
then intended to be the last, but to serve as an interlude, from
November, 1884, till February, 1885, at Mentone. Nietzsche never
published this fourth part; it was printed for private circulation and
not publicly issued till after he became insane. The whole of
_Zarathustra_ was published in 1892.
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is by no means the historical or legendary
Zoroaster, mage, leader, warrior, king. The Zarathustra of Nietzsche is
Nietzsche himself, with his views on life and death. Strauss’s opera
_Guntram_ (1894) showed the composer’s interest in the book. Before the
tone poem was performed, this programme was published: “First movement:
Sunrise, Man feels the power of God. _Andante religioso._ But man still
longs. He plunges into passion (second movement) and finds no peace. He
turns towards science, and tries in vain to solve life’s problem in a
fugue (third movement). Then agreeable dance tunes sound and he becomes
an individual, and his soul soars upward while the world sinks far
beneath him.” But Strauss gave this explanation to Otto Florsheim: “I
did not intend to write philosophical music or to portray in music
Nietzsche’s great work. I meant to convey by means of music an idea of
the development of the human race from its origin, through the various
phases of its development, religious and scientific, up to Nietzsche’s
idea of the Superman. The whole symphonic poem is intended as my homage
to Nietzsche’s genius, which found its greatest exemplification in his
book, _Thus Spake Zarathustra_.”
_Thus Spake Zarathustra_ is scored for piccolo, three flutes (one
interchangeable with a second piccolo), three oboes, English horn, two
clarinets in B flat, clarinet in E flat, bass clarinet, three bassoons,
double bassoon, six horns, four trumpets, three trombones, two bass
tubas, kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, a low
bell in E, two harps, organ, sixteen second violins, twelve violas,
twelve violoncellos, eight double basses.
On a flyleaf of a score is printed the following excerpts from
Nietzsche’s book, the first section of “Zarathustra’s Introductory
Speech”:
“Having attained the age of thirty, Zarathustra left his home and the
lake of his home and went into the mountains. There he rejoiced in his
spirit and his loneliness, and for ten years did not grow weary of it.
But at last his heart turned—one morning he got up with the dawn,
stepped into the presence of the Sun and thus spake unto him: ‘Thou
great star! What would be thy happiness, were it not for those on whom
thou shinest? For ten years thou hast come up here to my cave. Thou
wouldst have got sick of thy light and thy journey but for me, mine
eagle and my serpent. But we waited for thee every morning and receiving
from thee thine abundance, blessed thee for it. Lo! I am weary of my
wisdom, like the bee that hath collected too much honey; I need hands
reaching out for it. I would fain grant and distribute until the wise
among men could once more enjoy their folly, and the poor once more
their riches. For that end I must descend to the depth; as thou dost at
even, when sinking behind the sea, thou givest light to the lower
regions, thou resplendent star! I must, like thee, go down, as men
say—men to whom I would descend. Then bless me, thou impassive eye, that
canst look without envy even upon overmuch happiness. Bless the cup
which is about to overflow, so that the water golden-flowing out of it
may carry everywhere the reflection of thy rapture. Lo! this cup is
about to empty itself again, and Zarathustra will once more become a
man.’—Thus Zarathustra’s going down began.”
This prefatory note in Strauss’s tone poem is not a “programme” of the
composition itself. It is merely an introduction. The sub-captions of
the composer in the score indicate that the music after the short
musical introduction begins where the quotation ends.
“The scene of _Thus Spake Zarathustra_,” says Dr. Tille, “is laid, as it
were, outside of time and space, and certainly outside of countries and
nations, outside of this age, and outside of the main condition of all
that lives—the struggle for existence.... There appear cities and mobs,
kings and scholars, poets and cripples, but outside of their realm there
is a province which is Zarathustra’s own, where he lives in his cave
amid the rocks, and whence he thrice goes to men to teach them his
wisdom. This Nowhere and Nowhen, over which Nietzsche’s imagination is
supreme, is a province of boundless individualism, in which a man of
mark has free play, unfettered by the tastes and inclinations of the
multitude.... _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ is a kind of summary of the
intellectual life of the nineteenth century, and it is on this fact that
its principal significance rests. It unites in itself a number of mental
movements which, in literature as well as in various sciences, have made
themselves felt separately during the last hundred years, without going
far beyond them. By bringing them into contact, although not always into
uncontradictory relation, Nietzsche transfers them from mere existence
in philosophy, or scientific literature in general, into the sphere or
the creed of _Weltanschauung_ of the educated classes, and thus his book
becomes capable of influencing the views and strivings of a whole age.”
Zarathustra teaches men the deification of Life. He offers not joy of
life, for to him there is no such thing, but fullness of life, in the
joy of the senses, “in the triumphant exuberance of vitality, in the
pure, lofty naturalness of the antique, in short, in the fusion of God,
world, and ego.”
There is a simple but impressive introduction, in which there is a
solemn trumpet motive, which leads to a great climax for full orchestra
and organ on the chord of C major. There is this heading, “Von den
Hinterweltlern” (Of the Dwellers in the Rear World). These are they who
sought the solution in religion. Zarathustra too had once dwelt in this
rear world. (Horns intone a solemn Gregorian _Credo_.)
The next heading is “Von der grossen Sehnsucht” (Of the Great Yearning).
This stands over an ascending passage in B minor in violoncellos and
bassoons, answered by wood-wind instruments in chromatic thirds.
The next section begins with a pathetic _cantilena_ in C minor (second
violins, oboes, horn), and the heading is: “Von den Freuden und
Leidenschaften” (Of Joys and Passions).
“Grablied” (Grave Song). The oboe has a tender _cantilena_ over the
Yearning motive in violoncellos and bassoons.
“Von der Wissenschaft” (Of Science). The fugued passage begins with
violoncellos and double basses (divided). The subject of this _fugato_
contains all the diatonic and chromatic degrees of the scale, and the
real responses to this subject come in successively a fifth higher.
Much farther on a passage in the strings, beginning in the violoncellos
and violas, arises from B minor. “Der Genesende” (The Convalescent).
“Tanzlied.” The dance song begins with laughter in the wood-wind.
“Nachtlied” (Night Song).
“Nachtwanderlied” (The Song of the Night Wanderer, though Nietzsche in
later editions changed the title to “The Drunken Song”). The song comes
after a _fortissimo_ stroke of the bell, and the bell, sounding twelve
times, dies away softly.
The mystical conclusion has excited much discussion. The ending is in
two keys—in B major in the high wood-wind and violins, in C major in the
basses, _pizzicato_. “The theme of the Ideal sways aloft in the higher
regions in B major; the trombones insist on the unresolved chord of C,
E, F sharp; and in the double basses is repeated C, G, C, the World
Riddle.” This riddle is unsolved by Nietzsche, by Strauss, and even by
Strauss’s commentators.
“DON QUIXOTE,” FANTASTIC VARIATIONS ON A THEME OF KNIGHTLY CHARACTER,
OP. 35
INTRODUCTION, THEME WITH VARIATIONS, AND FINALE
Don Quixote, a virtuoso tone poem, shows Strauss at his best and at his
worst. Composers have laid violent hands on the world-famous novel of
Cervantes. The Knight has figured in both serious and comic operas. It
occurred to Strauss that Don Quixote might be portrayed by one
instrument, Sancho Panza by another. Strauss undoubtedly rubbed his
hands with glee at the thought of the musical representation of
ba-a-a-ing sheep and the opportunity of introducing a wind machine with
a man turning a crank for the variation, “The Ride through the Air.” But
there are fine passages in the work. When Don Quixote speaks nobly of
the ideal, Strauss gives him noble music, and Strauss has seldom written
more charming music than for the last speech of Sancho Panza. One might
ask, however, if this music is in Sancho Panza’s character as Cervantes
describes it. And in the final music—the disillusionment of Don Quixote
and his death—Strauss attains, without straining and exaggeration, an
emotional height that is seldom found in his instrumental compositions
that follow. Hearing these emotional sections one almost forgets the
imitative and pictorial passages of the work, which seem too long, with
much music that is of little worth and interest.
* * *
_Don Quixote_ (_Introduzione, Tema con Variazioni, e Finale_):
_Fantastische Variationen uber ein Thema ritterlichen Charakters_, was
composed at Munich in 1897 (the score was completed on December 29th of
that year). It was played for the first time at a Gürzenich Concert,
Cologne, from manuscript, Franz Wüllner conductor, March 8, 1898.
Friedrich Grützmacher was the solo violoncellist. Strauss conducted his
composition on March 18, 1898, at a concert of the Frankfort
Museumgesellschaft, when Hugo Becker was the violoncellist. It is said
that Becker composed an exceedingly piquant _cadenza_ for violoncello on
the “Quixote” motive for his own enjoyment at home.
The work is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two
clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, double bassoon, six horns,
three trumpets, three trombones, tenor tuba, bass tuba, kettledrums,
snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, wind machine,
harp, sixteen first violins, sixteen second violins, twelve violas, ten
violoncellos, eight double basses. It is dedicated to Joseph Dupont.
Much has been written in explanation of this work, which followed _Also
sprach Zarathustra_, Op. 30 (1896), and preceded _Ein Heldenleben_, Op.
40 (1898). As the story goes, at a music festival in Düsseldorf in 1899
an acquaintance of Strauss complained bitterly before the rehearsal that
he had no printed “guide” to _Don Quixote_, with which he was
unfamiliar. Strauss laughed, and said for his consolation, “Get out! you
do not need any.” Arthur Hahn wrote a pamphlet of twenty-seven pages in
elucidation. In this pamphlet are many wondrous things. We are told that
certain queer harmonies introduced in an otherwise simple passage of the
introduction “characterize admirably the well-known tendency of Don
Quixote toward false conclusions.”
There is no programme attached to the score of this work. The
arrangement for pianoforte gives certain information concerning the
composer’s purposes.
Max Steinitzer declares in his _Richard Strauss_ (Berlin and Leipsic,
1911) that with the exception of some details, as the “Windmill”
episode, the music is intelligible and effective as absolute music; that
the title is sufficiently explanatory. “The introduction begins
immediately with the hero’s motive and pictures with constantly
increasing liveliness by other themes of knightly and gallant character
life as it is mirrored in writings from the beginning of the seventeenth
century. ‘Don Quixote, busied in reading romances of chivalry, loses his
reason—and determines to go through the world as a wandering knight.’”
It is easy to recognize the hero’s theme in its variations, because the
knight is always represented by the solo violoncello. The character of
Sancho Panza is expressed by a theme first given to bass clarinet and
tenor tuba; but afterward and to the end by a solo viola. _Don Quixote_
is divided into an introduction, a theme with variations, and a
_finale_. The sections are connected without a break. Each variation
portrays an incident in the novel.