Philip Hale's Boston Symphony Programme Notes

It has been said that this symphony, published in 1925, was composed with the view of producing it under the direction of the composer at an English music festival. Sickness prevented his going to England. The symphony was performed in Philadelphia by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Mr. Stokowski conductor, on April 3, 1926.

There is no designation of key. The opening measures are in A minor; the ending is in C major.

The first section is a somber adagio. It opens with an ascending scale, 3-2 time for the strings. This is the basic theme of the symphony, appearing as a whole, in fragments, or inverted. A lyric theme follows, C major, for violas (divided) and violoncellos. The violins join later. There is a melody, somewhat like a chant for a solo trombone. This later assumes marked importance. The pace grows faster, until it is vivacissimo, C minor. Mr. Gilman, in his lucid notes for the Philadelphia Programme Book, finds that the subject now announced by the strings “recalls the mood of the scherzo of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica.’” The adagio tempo recurs, as does the trombone theme, which the brass section enlarges. Change in tempo: allegro molto moderato. There is a new motive, C major, 6-4, simple, in folk manner; still another motive with wood-wind “doubled in pairs, playing in thirds, fifths and sixths.” The development is for strings and wind. Vivace, E flat major. Antiphonal measures for strings and wood-wind. “The tempo becomes presto, the key C major. The strings, divided in eight parts, begin a mysteriously portentous passage, at first pianississimo, with the violas and violoncellos defining an urgent figure against a reiterated pedal G of the violins, basses, and tympani. A crescendo, rallentando, is accompanied by a fragment of the basic scale passage, in augmentation, for the horns. The tempo is again adagio; and now the chant-like C major theme is heard once more from the brass choir, against mounting figurations of the strings. There is a climax fortissimo, for the whole orchestra. The strings are heard alone, largamente molto, in an affettuoso of intense expression. Flute and bassoon in octaves, supported by soft string tremolos, sing a plaint. The strings, dolce, in syncopated rhythm, modulate through seventh chords in A flat and G to a powerful suspension, fortissimo, on the tonic chord of C major; and this brings to a close the enigmatic, puissant, and strangely moving work.”[48]

The instrumentation which Sibelius calls for in his Seventh symphony is typical of the severely “classical” orchestration which was the basis of his symphonies in general: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, kettledrums, and strings. This was also the instrumentation of the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth (although, for episodic purposes, a glockenspiel was added to the Fourth, and a bass clarinet and harp to the Sixth). The First symphony had a richer bass and percussion—bass tuba, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, and harp were used (compare the orchestration of Finlandia and The Swan of Tuonela of the same early period). When he wrote his Second symphony, Sibelius dropped all these instruments of percussion. The tuba he kept for the Second, but he did not use it again in his symphonies.—EDITOR.

“FINLANDIA,” SYMPHONIC POEM FOR ORCHESTRA, OP. 26, NO. 7

It is said that Finlandia, although it was composed as far back as 1894, evokes such enthusiasm in the composer’s native land that performance of it was forbidden by the oppressing Russian. The question is, does Finlandia evoke enthusiasm in Madrid, Dresden, Boston? For after all it is something more than a national document. It is picturesque, with suggestions of prayers and hymns, revolts and revolutions.

There is more of Finland in the symphonies, the violin concerto, and A Saga of Sibelius than in his Finlandia, which is hot with the spirit of revolt. No doubt he wrote this music with a patriotic heart, but patriotism is not an essential quality in a musical work of art.

Finlandia: Tondight for orkester, Op. 26, No. 7, was composed in 1894. It is not a fantasia on genuine folk tunes. The composer is the authority for this statement. Mrs. Newmarch says: “Like Glinka, Sibelius avoids the crude material of the folk song; but like this great national poet, he is so penetrated by the spirit of his race that he can evolve a national melody calculated to deceive the elect. On this point the composer is emphatic, ‘There is a mistaken impression among the press abroad,’ he has assured me, ‘that my themes are often folk melodies. So far I have never used a theme that was not of my own invention. Thus the thematic material of Finlandia and En Saga is entirely my own.’”

The following note is from a programme of the Russian Symphony Society:

“Finlandia, though without explanatory subtitle, seems to set forth an impression of the national spirit and life.... The work records the impressions of an exile’s return home after a long absence. An agitated, almost angry theme for the brass choir, short and trenchant, begins the introduction, andante sostenuto (alla breve). This theme is answered by an organ-like response in the wood-wind, and then a prayerful passage for strings, as though to reveal the essential earnestness and reasonableness of the Finnish people, even under the stress of national sorrow. This leads to an allegro moderato episode, in which the restless opening theme is proclaimed by the strings against a very characteristic rhythmic figure, a succession of eight beats, the first strongly accented.... With a change to allegro the movement, looked at as an example of the sonata form, may be said to begin. A broad, cheerful theme by the strings in A flat, against the persistent rhythm in the brass, is followed by a second subject, introduced by the wood-wind and taken up by the strings, then by the ’cello and first violin. This is peaceful and elevated in character, and might be looked upon as prophetic of ultimate rest and happiness. The development of these musical ideas carries the tone poem to an eloquent conclusion.”

Finlandia is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and strings.

“THE SWAN OF TUONELA” (“TUONELAN JOUTSEN”), LEGEND FROM THE FINNISH FOLK EPIC “KALEVALA”

Here is no swan, singing before death, a fable that suggested to Villiers de l’Isle-Adam one of his cruelest tales, and served Anna Pavlowa for an entrancing, memorable dance-pantomime to Saint-Saëns’ familiar music. This is the swan that glides and sings on the river of black water around Tuonela, the Kingdom of Death. Sibelius, to whom the Finnish epic Kalevala furnished subjects for several of his earlier compositions, by economic means, by an unerring choice of his instruments, portrays the scene and gives the song—after the hearer is acquainted with the explanatory note in the score. Suppose that the hearer had no knowledge of the legend, had never read of Lemminkainen’s adventures; how, to win the maid Pohjola, he set out to accomplish certain tasks, among them to shoot a swan on this River of Death. How would the hearer then be impressed? Surely he would be moved by the strangeness of the music, by the mysterious first measures, by the unearthly melancholy of the song, by the quiet intensity of it all. He would find in the music a tragic mood, simply but unmistakably expressed. To us this legend of Sibelius, for itself, is commanding music.

The Swan of Tuonela is the third section of a symphonic poem Lemminkainen, in four parts, Op. 22, 1. “Lemminkainen and the Maidens”; 2. “His Sojourn in Tuonela”; 3. “The Swan of Tuonela”; 4. “Lemminkainen Homefaring.” These pieces are drawn from the Finnish epic Kalevala. A note on the score of The Swan of Tuonela runs thus: “Tuonela, the Kingdom of Death, the Hades of Finnish mythology, is surrounded by a broad river of black water and rapid current, in which the Swan of Tuonela glides in majestic fashion and sings.”

Lemminkainen is one of the four principal heroes of the Kalevala. Mr. W. F. Kirby, in his translation of the epic, describes him as a “jovial, reckless personage, always getting into serious scrapes, from which he escapes either by his own skill in magic or by his mother’s. His love for his mother is the redeeming feature in his character. One of his names is Kaukomieli, and he is, in part, the original of Longfellow’s ‘Pau-Puk-Keewis.’”

In the thirteenth and fourteenth Runos, it is told how Lemminkainen asks the old woman of Pohja for her daughter Pohjola. She demands that he should first accomplish certain tasks: to capture on snowshoes the elk of Hiisi; to bridle fire-breathing steeds. Succeeding in these adventures, he is asked to shoot a swan on the river of Tuonela.

Lemminkainen came to the river. A cowherd, Märkähattu, old and sightless, who had long waited for him, slew him there by sending a serpent “like a reed from out the billows” through the hero’s heart, and cast the body into the stream. Lemminkainen floated on to Tuonela’s dread dwelling. The son of Tuoni cut the body into pieces. The hero’s mother, learning of his fate, raked the water under the cataract till she found all the fragments. She joined them together and restored her son to life by charms and magic salves, so that he could return home with her.

The piece is written in A minor, andante molto sostenuto 9-4 time. Mrs. Rosa Newmarch (Jean Sibelius) says of it:

“The majestic but intensely sad, swan-like melody is heard as a solo for cor-anglais, accompanied at first by muted strings and the soft roll of drums. Now and then this melody is answered by a phrase given to first violoncello or viola, which might be interpreted as the farewell sigh of some soul passing to Tuonela. For many bars the brass is silent, until suddenly the first horn (muted) echoes a few notes of the swan melody with the most poignant effect. Gradually the music works up to a great climax, indicated con gran suono, followed by a treble pianissimo, the strings playing with the back of the bow. To this accompaniment, which suggests the faint flapping of pinions, the swan’s final phrases are sung. The strings return to the natural bowing and the work ends in one of the characteristic, sighing phrases for violoncello.”

The second theme is given out by the strings to a slow but rhythmed accompaniment of wood-wind, brass, and drums.

The score calls for oboe, English horn (solo), bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trombones, kettledrums, bass drum, harp, and the usual strings.

RICHARD
STRAUSS

(Born at Munich, June 11, 1864)

“DON JUAN,” TONE POEM (AFTER NICOLAUS LENAU), OP. 20

Some of Strauss’s wild-eyed worshipers, not content with the quotations that serve as mottoes, have invented ingenious analyses in which we are told the precise meaning of each theme in Don Juan, and how this section represents his passion for a widow and that for a maiden. But did not Strauss himself say that the theme which represents, according to an analyst, Don Juan rushing off to new triumphs was intended as his drunken entrance into a ballroom? And is it not possible that when Strauss wrote down this theme he attached no specific and minute significance to it? No, there is no need of the showman with blackboard and rod while this music is playing. “Don Juan—after Lenau’s poem” is enough; and merely Don Juan might serve.

A daring, brilliant composition: one that paints the hero as might a master’s brush on canvas. How expressive the themes! How daring the treatment of them! What fascinating, irresistible insolence, glowing passion, and then the taste of Dead Sea fruit!

Don Juan, composed at Munich 1887-88, is known as the first of Strauss’s symphonic or tone poems, but Macbeth, Op. 23, was composed at Munich, 1886-87 (revised in 1890 at Weimar), and published later (1891). Don Juan was published in 1890. The first performance of Don Juan was at the second subscription concert of the Grand Ducal Court Orchestra of Weimar in the fall of 1889.

The work is scored for three flutes (and piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, kettledrums, triangle, cymbals, glockenspiel, harp, strings. The score is dedicated “To my dear friend, Ludwig Thuille,” a composer and teacher, born at Bozen in 1861, who was a fellow student at Munich. Thuille died in 1907.

Strauss’s hero is Lenau’s, in search of the ideal woman. Not finding one reaching his standard, disgusted with life, he practically commits suicide by dropping his sword when fighting a duel with a man whose father he had killed. Before this Don Juan dies, he provides in his will for the women he had seduced and forsaken.

Lenau wrote his poem in 1844. It is said that his third revision was made in August and September of that year at Vienna and Stuttgart. After September he wrote no more, for he went mad, and he was mad until he died in 1850. The poem, “Eitel nichts,” dedicated in the asylum at Winnenthal, was intended originally for Don Juan. Don Juan is of a somewhat fragmentary nature. The quotations made by Strauss paint well the hero’s character.

L. A. Frankl, a biographer of the morbid poet, says that Lenau once spoke as follows concerning his purpose in this dramatic poem: “Goethe’s great poem has not hurt me in the matter of Faust and Byron’s ‘Don Juan’ will here do me no harm. Each poet, as every human being, is an individual ego. My Don Juan is no hot-blooded man eternally pursuing woman. It is the longing in him to find a woman who is to him incarnate womanhood, and to enjoy in the one, all the women on earth, whom he cannot as individuals possess. Because he does not find her, although he reels from one to another, at last Disgust seizes hold of him, and this Disgust is the Devil that fetches him.”

It has been said that the “emotional phases of the story” appealed to Strauss:

1. The fiery ardor with which Don Juan pursues his ideal;

2. The charm of woman; and

3. The selfish idealist’s disappointment and partial atonement by death.

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:

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.

Introduction

Mässiges Zeitmass (moderato), D major, 4-4. Don Quixote plunged himself deeply in his reading of books of knighthood, “and in the end, through his little sleep and much reading, he dried up his brains in such sort, as he lost wholly his judgment. His fantasy was filled with those things that he read, of enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, tempests, and other impossible follies.”[49] The first theme (wind instruments) foreshadows the typical Don Quixote motive, and is here typical of knight-errantry in general. The next section (strings) represents the idea of knightly gallantry, and the whole theme ends with the passages that include the strange harmonies and portray his madness. These strange progressions recur frequently throughout the work. “He does not dream,” says Mr. H. W. Harris, “that his reasoning is at fault or that he is the victim of self-delusion; on the contrary, he ascribes all such discrepancies to magic, by which he believes himself to be persecuted, which is clearly being employed to make things appear otherwise than his judgment assures him they really should be.”

The first section of the first theme is ornamented (violas). Don Quixote grows more and more romantic and chivalric. He sees the Ideal Woman, his lady-love (oboe). The trumpets tell of a giant attacking her and her rescue by a knight. “In this part of the Introduction, the use of mutes on all the instruments—including the tuba, here so treated for the first time—creates an indescribable effect of vagueness and confusion, indicating that they are mere phantasms with which the Knight is concerned, which cloud his brain.” A Penitent enters (muted violas fortissimo). Don Quixote’s brain grows more and more confused. The orchestral themes grow wilder. An augmented version of the first section of the theme (brass), followed by a harp glissando, leads to shrill discord—the Knight is mad. “The repeated use of the various sections of the first theme shows that his madness has something to do with chivalry.” Don Quixote has decided to be a knight-errant.