Death and Transfiguration

It had harbored Goethe and Schiller and been sanctified in the young musician's sight by the labors of Liszt.

his munich friend the tenor heinrich zeller who had coached wagner rolls with him had settled there and a young soprano pauline de anha the daughter of a bavarian general with strong musical enthusiasm soon followed him in proper course she was to become richard strauss's wife a high-spirited outspoken lady never disposed to mince words a source of innumerable yarns and witticisms and who saw to it that her celebrated husband carefully towed the mark pauline strauss was in every way a chapter by herself and when not very long after his death she followed him to the grave it seemed only a benign provision of fate that she should not too long survive him strauss almost instantly infused a new blood into the artistic life of weimar where he settled in eighteen eighty nine and remained till eighteen ninety four the worthy old court kapellmeister edward lassen was sensible enough to allow his energetic new associate complete freedom of action true the artistic means at his disposal were relatively modest and at first they might well have given the ambitious newcomer pause the orchestra then contained only six first violins there was a painfully superannuated little chorus and most of the leading singers had seen better days but the conductor from munich was disturbed by none of these apparent handicaps in bayreuth he had already learned the proper way of producing wagner and even when the means were limited he tolerated no concessions all wagnerian performances had to be done without cuts or at least with a minimum of curtailments a wisecrack began to go the rounds what is richard strauss doing to which the reply was strauss is opening cuts the mouldy old settings were replaced by new ones and once when there was insufficient funds to buy new stage appointments strauss approached the grand duke with the plea that he might lay out of his own pocket a thousand marks to freshen the settings to the credit of the ruler it should be told that he refused the offer and disbursed the sum himself but strauss's reforms were far from ending there he once confessed that in his comprehensive job he was not only conductor but coach scene painter stage manager and tailor in short a thorough-going he threw himself heart and soul into the job so much so that in spite of a small stage and limited means he produced in the presence of none other than cosima wagner a lohengrin that deeply gripped her he had symphonic concerts as well as operas to occupy him at one of the former he transported his hearers with the world premiere of his don juan the date deserves to be noted november eleventh eighteen eighty nine that same year he had composed another tone poem death and transfiguration and on june twenty one eighteen eighty nine he permitted an audience in nearby eisenach to hear it the work is programme music if you will but the idea that it originally set out to illustrate the poem about the man dying in a necessitous little room and after his death struggles translated to supernal glories is wrong moreover the long-accepted notion that the music is based on lines by alexander ritter is fallacious for in the first place the composer did not aim to illustrate his friend's word picture and in the second ritter wrote the poem only after becoming acquainted with the score this is what explains a certain incongruity between ritter's verses and the tones which in reality were never conceived in slavish illustration of them hanslick wrong as usual was to write misleadingly once again a previously printed poem makes it certain that the listener cannot go awry for the music follows this poetic programme step by step quite as in a ballet scenario and he spoke of the score as a gruesome combat of dissonances in which the wood-wind howls in runs of chromatic thirds while the brass growls and all the strings rage by this time accustomed to such critical nonsense the composer did not suffer himself to be troubled what disturbed him much more was that his old champion von beulau gave indications of no longer seeing eye to eye with him at beulau's suggestion strauss had revised and newly instrumented macbeth but the piece was to continue a step-child soon he was increasing his output of songs and enriching leader singers with such treasures as rua maenzela cecilie heimliche auforderung and morgan while only a few short years ahead lay traum durch die dämmerung nachtsgesang and schlagende herzen to delight nearly two generations of recitalists strauss had always been blessed with a robust health unlike wagner for instance he never suffered from exacerbated nerves and violent extremes of unbalanced mood but at the period of which we speak he did experience one of his rare periods of illness what between his guest engagements his rehearsals the strain of composing attending to details of publication and myriad other obligations of a travelling conductor and virtuoso he came down in may eighteen ninety one with a menacing grip which sent him to bed and threatened serious complications he was resigned to anything even if he did confess dying would not be in itself so bad but first i should like to be able to conduct he recovered and had his wish in eighteen ninety two but in the summer he was sick once more this time with pneumonia now it looked as if one lung were seriously threatened he was granted the vacation he requested from november eighteen ninety two to july of the succeeding year taking some works and sketches he started on the advice of his physicians for the south the convalescent with a finished opera libretto in his baggage went to repair his health in italy greece and egypt in egypt he recovered completely in the anhalter railway station berlin he was to see for the last time the mortally sick von bulow likewise journeying to egypt in a last effort to repair his shattered constitution poor bulow was not to survive the trip the wiry frame of strauss helped him over any threat of tuberculosis and not only defied any peril to his lungs but seemed actually to renew his creative powers the libretto which occupied his attention was that of his opera guntram the first and least known of his productions for the lyric stage Guthrum is without question a stiefkind among Richard Strauss's operas.

The average Strauss enthusiast's acquaintance with its music may be said to be confined to the brief phrase from it cited in the section called The Hero's Works of Peace in the tone poem Ein Heldenleben.

Nevertheless, the opera cost the composer six long years of his time.

this did not mean however that he had written his last score far from it at eighty-one he was to complete several the real value of which may be left to the judgment of posterity they include some songs a duet concertino for clarinet and bassoon with strings a concerto for oboe and orchestra a still unperformed concert fragment for orchestra from the legend of joseph More important, unquestionably, is Metamorphoses, a study for 23 solo strings, first played in Zurich, January 25, 1946, under the direction of Paul Saussure.

This work, despite its length, is music of suave, beautiful texture, a certain nobly nostalgic quality of farewell which seems to sum up the composer's life work with all its ups and downs.

we may allow it to go at this and to spare further enumeration of the innumerable odds and ends he was to assemble from his boyhood to the patriarchal age of more than eighty-five years or even to allude to his gross derangement of mozart's idomeneo done in nineteen thirty at munich having lived through a lively young manhood and endured the bitter experience of two world wars richard strauss in the end performed the miracle of actually dying of old age one might almost have looked for convulsions of nature for signs and portents at his eventual passing but his going was to be accompanied by no such things his death in garmisch september eighth nineteen forty nine was brought about by the illnesses of the flesh at more than four score and five he died of a complication of heart liver and kidney troubles and he died in his bed a heldenleben if you will and a death and transfiguration played against the loveliest conceivable background, an incomparable stage setting of alpine lakes and heights, with streams and gleaming summits furnishing a glorious backdrop for his resting place.

End of Part 3 End of Richard Strauss by Herbert F. Pieser