Franz Strauss

at this point the writer ought logically to confess that he bases his present recollections on what he remembers from his wanderings in the bavarian capital prior to the second world war since which time changes without number may well have changed the picture but one thing is reasonably certain if the old house at alzheimer eck number two still stands it continues to have affixed to its wall the decorative inscription on eleventh june eighteen sixty four were here richard strauss geboren on june eleventh eighteen sixty four richard strauss was born here the shores apart from being excellent brewers were excellent musicians one of the four daughters josephine later ricard's mother a fairly accomplished pianist taught her son piano in his fifth year A noted harpist, Auguste Trombeau, continued the lessons, and by the time the boy was seven he was administered violin instruction.

Franz Strauss, Ricard's father, was an individual of a fiber as tough as Josephine Shore, who became his wife, was mild-mannered and sensitive.

But he was an amazingly fine horn player, for the sake of whose virtuosity and musicianship greater men than he put up with his ill manners and incredible tantrums a venomous reactionary his particular detestation was wagner against whom he never hesitated to exhibit the meanest traits of which he was capable even when the author of tristan expressed himself as overjoyed with the sound of the orchestra at a first rehearsal of his work in the little residence fraunstrauss retorted that's not true it sounded like an old tin kettle he pronounced wagner's horn parts unplayable so that wagner had to call upon hans richter to try out for him some passages in die meistersinger in order to demonstrate that they were anything but impossible with the elder strauss hans von bulow was repeatedly at loggerheads and when he once attempted to thank bulow for some favor the latter had shown young richard strauss bulow exploded with the words you have no right to thank me i did your son a favor not on your account but only because i consider his talent deserves it to the end of his days franz strauss remained a cantankerous individual Young Ricard may not have exhibited the precocity of a Mozart or a Mendelssohn, but there could be no doubt that musical impulses stirred in the child.

He piled up a considerable quantity of juvenilia, beginning as a six-year-old.

In 1871 he turned out a Schneider Polka, a Taylor's polka.

There followed dance pieces for piano, wedding music for keyboard, and children's instruments some arches and more miscellany of the sort it was related by his naturally proud relations that the lad could write notes even before he had learned the alphabet there would be no particular point in detailing these boyish accomplishments yet when richard was twelve an uncle paid for the publication by brodkopf und rietel of a festival march which gained the distinction of appearing as opus one it need hardly be said that he participated in domestic performances of chamber music with regularity all the same his school work maintained a high level even if it did not consume a needless amount of time he also found leisure to jot in the pages of his mathematics copy-book whole passages of a violin concerto which appears to have been set down during his classroom lessons according to his biographer willibrandl the piece was written so rapidly that the student contrived a three-line staff instead of the usual five-line one at this period his musical tastes were coloured by those of his father thus there is no reason for surprise that the compositions he turned out up to the end of his high school days were the customary platitudes of classical and romantic models especially schumann and mendelssohn were rather colorlessly reflected in the products the youth fashioned even considering his father's poisonous detestation of wagner it still remains hard to grasp how weak was the pressure the creator of tristan und meistersinger exercised on the son precisely when the wagnerian idiom was beginning to permeate the language of music more than that it took time for the boy strauss to rid his system of the ludicrous prejudices he parroted for a while to his friend the composer ludwig twili he confided the lohengrin which he heard at fifteen was sweet and sickly in all but the action and after his first exposure to siegfried he lamented that he was more cruelly bored than i can tell then he concluded with this verse of prophecy you can be assured that in ten years nobody will remember who richard wagner was young strauss was to outlive such heresies by the sensible process of steeping himself in wagner's scores rather than by viewing inadequate performances as truths of holy writ it is hardly necessary to emphasize the dismay of franz strauss as little by little he became aware of the turn things were taking he who had striven to bring up his son in his own philistine ways was gradually brought face to face with the upsetting fact that the young man might be getting out of hand richard was no music school or conservatory pupil and had presumably none too many academic precepts to unlearn one advantage of this was that nothing tempted him to cut short other phases of his education and in the autumn of eighteen eighty two he began to attend philosophical literary and other cultural lectures at the university of munich so that there were no serious gaps in his schooling he continued to compose industriously a chorus in the electra of sophocles was one of his creations in this period But in after years he warned against rushing before the public with unripe efforts.

Subsequently he visited upon the works of his salad days this judgment, In them I lost much real freshness and force.

So much for those who question even today the soundness of this early verdict.