"DON JUAN," TONE-POEM: Op. 20
This work is usually placed first on the list of Strauss's remarkable series of tone-poems; yet, though it bears an earlier opus number, it was actually preceded, in point of composition, by "Macbeth," op. 23, which was written in 1887, a year earlier than "Don Juan."
The subject of this tone-poem is the "Don Juan" of Nicolaus Lenau (1802-1850), and quotations from Lenau's poem are prefixed to the score. They are as follows:
DON JUAN [to Diego, his brother]
"O magic realm, illimited, eternal,
Of gloried woman—loveliness supernal!
Fain would I, in the storm of stressful bliss,
Expire upon the last one's lingering kiss!
Through every realm, O friend, would wing my flight,
Wherever Beauty blooms, kneel down to each,
And if for one brief moment, win delight!"
DON JUAN [to Diego]
"I flee from surfeit and from rapture's cloy,
Keep fresh for Beauty service and employ,
Grieving the One, that All I may enjoy.
The fragrance from one lip to-day is breath of spring:
The dungeon's gloom perchance to-morrow's luck may bring.
When with the new love won I sweetly wander,
No bliss is ours upfurbish'd and regilded;
A different love has This to That one yonder—
Not up from ruins be my temples builded.
Yea, Love life is, and ever must be new,
Cannot be changed or turned in new direction;
It cannot but there expire—here resurrection;
And, if 'tis real, it nothing knows of rue!
Each Beauty in the world is sole, unique:
So must the Love be that would Beauty seek!
So long as Youth lives on with pulse afire,
Out to the chase! To victories new aspire!"DON JUAN [to Marcello, his friend]
"It was a wond'rous lovely storm that drove me:
Now it is o'er; and calm all round, above me;
Sheer dead is every wish; all hopes o'ershrouded—
'Twas p'r'aps a flash from heaven that so descended,
Whose deadly stroke left me with powers ended,
And all the world, so bright before, o'erclouded;
And yet p'r'aps not! Exhausted is the fuel;
And on the hearth the cold is fiercely cruel." [142]
Lenau is said to have observed of his creation: "My 'Don Juan' is no hot-blooded man eternally pursuing women. 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." Elaborate and inexorably detailed commentaries have been written on Strauss's tone-poem; yet this brief exposition by Mr. Philip Hale is more truly illuminating than are the exhaustive excursions of the German analysts:
"Lenau's hero is a man who seeks the sensual ideal. He is constantly disappointed. He is repeatedly disgusted with himself, men and women, and the world; and when at last he fights a duel with Don Pedro, the avenging son of the Grand Commander, he throws away his sword and lets his adversary kill him.
"'Mein Todfeind ist in meine Faust gegeben;
Doch dies auch langweilt, wie das ganze Leben.'
"('My deadly foe is in my power; but this, too, bores me, as does life itself.')"
Of the tragic end of the Don's insatiable experimenting—as Strauss has turned it into music—he says:
"Till the end the mood grows wilder and wilder. There is no longer time for regret, and soon there will be no time for longing. It is the Carnival, and Don Juan drinks deep of wine and love.... Surrounded by women, overcome by wine, he rages in passion, and at last falls unconscious.... Gradually he comes to his senses, the themes of the apparitions, rhythmically disguised as in fantastic dress, pass like sleep-chasings through his brain, and then there is the motive of 'Disgust.' Some find in the next episode the thought of the cemetery, with Don Juan's reflections and his invitation to the Statue. Here the jaded man finds solace in bitter reflection. At the feast, surrounded by gay company, there is a faint awakening of longing, but he exclaims:
"'The fire of my blood has now burned out.'
"Then comes the duel, with the death scene. The theme of 'Disgust' now dominates. There is a tremendous orchestral crash; there is long and eloquent silence. A pianissimo chord in A minor is cut into by a piercingly dissonant trumpet F, and then there is a last sigh, a mourning dissonance and resolution (trombones) to E minor.
"'Exhausted is the fuel,
And on the hearth the cold is fiercely cruel.'"