Richard Strauss-Herbert Francis Peyser

richard strauss by herbert f piezer foreword the writer of a thumbnail biography of richard strauss finds himself confronted with a troublesome assignment strauss lived well beyond the scriptural age allotted the average man he would have been eighty-six had he reached his next birthday there was nothing romantic or sensational about his passing for he died of a complication of the illnesses of old age there was not much truly spectacular about the course of his life which was most happily free from the material troubles which bedevilled the existence of so many great masters and he was not called upon to starve or to struggle to achieve the material rewards of his gifts he had not to pass through the conflicts which embittered the lives of wagner or berlioz and he was never compelled to suffer like mozart or schubert there is no record of his ever humiliating himself or performing degrading chores for publishers in return for a wretched pittance he had wealth enough without compromising his art to keep the pot boiling and for this one can only feel devoutly thankful what if he was taxed with sensationalism how many of the masters of music has not had at one time or another to endure this reproach if salome and elektra ein heldenleben and till eulenspiegel were in their days scandalously sensational did not the whirligig of time reveal them as incontestable products of genius irrespective of inequalities and flaws however richard strauss compares in the last analysis with this or that master he contributed to the language of music idioms procedures and technical accomplishments typical of the confused years and conflicting ideals out of which they were born his works are most decidedly of an age whether or not they are for all time In a way he was almost as fortunate as Mendelssohn.

Need anyone begrudge him this? H.

F. P.

The late spring of 1864 brought two events which, though seemingly unrelated, actually had a kind of mystic kinship and were to stir the surfaces of music.

Early in May of that year, Richard Wagner was summoned to Munich to become the friend and protégé of the young Bavarian sovereign, Ludwig II, whose real mission on earth was to save the composer for the world.

hardly more than a month later there was born in the same city a boy likewise named ricard who was destined in the fullness of time to become in a sense an heir and continuator of the old master though by no means a vain copy of his artistic and spiritual lineaments and long before the span of his days reached its end he had taken an undisputed place in history as a seminal force in music for all the disagreements and conflicts his art was to engender through a large part of his more than fourscore years richard strauss first saw the light on june eleventh eighteen sixty four in a house on the altheimer eck munich at the centre of the town and a stone's throw from the twin steeples of the frauenkirche the edifice in which the future composer of salome electra and der rosenkavalier was born forms part of a complex of buildings in which a number of larger and smaller beer halls and restaurants separated by cobbled courtyards housed the brewery of georg schorr senior whose son georg schorr junior enlarged the establishment Furthermore, he improved the quality of its products till Shorebrow beer became, it seemed to many, including the writer of these pages, the most incomparable refreshment this side of heaven, despite the close proximity of the Hofbräuhaus, the Löwenbräu, the Augustinerbräu, and the unnumbered other Munich breweries and affiliated Bierstuben.

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