The Death of Don Quixote. “Very peacefully,” D major, 4-4. The typical
theme of the Knight takes a new form. The queer harmonies in a section
of this theme are now conventional, commonplace. “They stood all gazing
one upon another, wondering at Don Quixote’s sound reasons, although
they made some doubt to believe them. One of the signs which induced
them to conjecture that he was near unto death’s door was that with such
facility he was from a stark fool become a wise man. For, to the words
already alleged, he added many more so significant, so Christian-like,
and so well couched, that without doubt they confidently believed that
Don Quixote was become a right wise man.... These heavy news opened the
sluices of the tears-ful and swollen-blubbering eyes of the maid, of the
niece, and of his good Squire Sancho Panza; so that they showered forth
whole fountains of tears and fetched from the very bottom of their
aggrieved hearts a thousand groaning sighs. For in effect (as we have
already declared elsewhere) whilst Don Quixote was simply the good
Alonso Quixano, and likewise when he was Don Quixote de la Mancha, he
was ever of a mild and affable disposition and of a kind and pleasing
conversation: and therefore was he not only beloved of all his
household, but also of all those that knew him.... He had no sooner
ended his discourse and signed and sealed his will and testament, but a
swooning and faintness surprising him, he stretched himself the full
length of his bed. All the company were much distracted and moved
thereat, and ran presently to help him; and during the space of three
days, that he lived after he had made his will, he did swoon and fall
into trances almost every hour. All the house was in a confusion and
uproar; all which notwithstanding the niece ceased not to feed very
devoutly: the maidservant to drink profoundly, and Sancho to live
merrily. For, when a man is in hope to inherit anything, that hope doth
deface or at least moderate in the mind of the inheritor the remembrance
or feeling of the sorrow and grief which of reason he should have a
feeling of the testator’s death. To conclude, the last day of Don
Quixote came, after he had received all the sacraments; and had by many
and godly reasons made demonstration to abhor all the books of errant
chivalry. The notary was present at his death and reporteth how he had
never read or found in any book of chivalry that any errant knight died
in his bed so mildly, so quietly, and so Christianly as did Don Quixote.
Amidst the wailful plaints and blubbering tears of the bystanders, he
yielded up the ghost, that is to say, he died.”
“Tremolos in the strings indicate the first shiver of a deadly fever.”
The Knight feels his end is near. Through the violoncello he speaks his
last words. He remembers his fancies; he recalls the dreams and the
ambitions; he realizes that they were all as smoke and vanity; he is,
indeed, ready to die.
“EIN HELDENLEBEN” (A HERO’S LIFE), TONE POEM, OP. 40
We doubt if _Ein Heldenleben_ will be ranked among Strauss’s important
works, though some of the sections, notably “The Hero’s Escape from the
World, and Conclusion” are impressive, having emotional depth, being the
baring of a soul. No man is perhaps a hero to his valet; but Strauss is
evidently a hero to himself. He is autobiographical in this tone poem,
as in his _Domestic_ symphony. There is a certain presumption in asking
one to hear musical descriptions of a composer’s struggles, his feelings
at being adversely criticized by wretched Philistines, who do not
appreciate him, his sulking and withdrawal, like Achilles to his tent.
And why drag Frau Strauss into the musical story and typify her,
capricious, coquettish, by whimsical measures for the violin? This tone
poem, in spite of the sections just referred to, might be justly
entitled “A Poseur’s Life,” and a blustering poseur at that.
Still, in _Ein Heldenleben_ there is the peaceful, contemplative ending,
pages that Strauss has seldom surpassed, only in the recognition scene
of _Elektra_ and the presentation of the rose by the cavalier.
* * *
_Ein Heldenleben_, a _Tondichtung_, was first performed at the eleventh
concert of the Museumsgesellschaft, Frankfort-on-the-Main, March 3,
1899, when Strauss conducted from manuscript and Alfred Hess played the
violin solo.
Strauss began the composition of this tone poem at Munich, August 2,
1898; he completed the score December 27, 1898, at Charlottenburg. The
score and parts were published at Leipsic in March, 1899.
The score calls for these instruments: sixteen first and second violins,
twelve violas, twelve violoncellos, eight double basses, two harps, a
piccolo, three flutes, three or four oboes, an English horn, clarinet in
E flat, two clarinets in B flat, bass clarinet, three bassoons, double
bassoon, eight horns, five trumpets, three trombones, a tenor tuba, a
bass tuba, kettledrums, bass drum, snare drum, side drum, cymbals. It is
dedicated to Willem Mengelberg and his orchestra in Amsterdam. Strauss
has said that he wrote _A Hero’s Life_ as a companion work to his _Don
Quixote_, Op. 35: “Having in this later work sketched the tragi-comic
figure of the Spanish Knight whose vain search after heroism leads to
insanity, he presents in _A Hero’s Life_ not a single poetical or
historical figure, but rather a more general and free ideal of great and
manly heroism—not the heroism to which one can apply an everyday
standard of valor, with its material and exterior rewards, but that
heroism which describes the inward battle of life, and which aspires
through effort and renouncement towards the elevation of the soul.”
There are many descriptions and explanations of _Ein Heldenleben_. One
of the longest and deepest—and thickest—is by Friedrich Rösch. This
pamphlet contains seventy thematical illustrations, as well as a
descriptive poem by Eberhard König. Romain Rolland quotes Strauss as
saying: “There is no need of a programme. It is enough to know there is
a hero fighting his enemies.”
The work is in six sections: