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Signature. Richard Georg Strauss (German: [ˈʁɪçaʁt ˈʃtʁaʊs]; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his tone poems and operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. [1]
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Richard Strauss (born June 11, 1864, Munich, Germany—died September 8, 1949, Garmisch-Partenkirchen) an outstanding German Romantic composer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His symphonic poems of the 1890s and his operas of the following decade have remained an indispensable feature of the standard repertoire.
Strauss’s father, Franz, was the principal horn player of the Munich Court Orchestra and was recognized as Germany’s leading virtuoso of the instrument. His mother came from the prominent brewing family of Pschorr. During a conventional education, Strauss still devoted most of his time and energy to music. When he left school in 1882, he had already composed more than 140 works, including 59 lieder (art songs) and various chamber and orchestral works. These juvenilia reflect Strauss’s musical upbringing by his father, who revered the classics and detested Richard Wagner both as a man and as a composer, even though he was a notable performer of the horn passages in performances of Wagner’s operas.
Through his father’s connections, Strauss on leaving school met the leading musicians of the day, including the conductor Hans von Bülow, who commissioned Strauss’s Suite for 13 Winds for the Meiningen Orchestra and invited Strauss to conduct that work’s first performance in Munich in November 1884. Following this successful conducting debut, Bülow offered Strauss the post of assistant conductor at Meiningen. Thenceforward Strauss’s eminence as a conductor paralleled his rise as a composer. Among the conducting posts he went on to hold were those of third conductor of the Munich Opera (1886–89), director of the Weimar Court Orchestra (1889–94), second and then chief conductor at Munich (1894–98), conductor (and later director) of the Royal Court Opera in Berlin (1898–1919), and musical codirector of the Vienna State Opera (1919–24).
At Meiningen Strauss met the composer Alexander Ritter, who reinforced that admiration for Wagner’s music which Strauss had previously nurtured in secret so as not to upset his father. Ritter urged Strauss to abandon classical forms and to express his musical ideas in the medium of the symphonic, or tone, poem, as Franz Liszt had done. Strauss had to work his way to mastery of this form, a half-way stage being his Aus Italien (1886; From Italy), a “symphonic fantasy” based on his impressions during his first visit to Italy. In Weimar in November 1889, he conducted the first performance of his symphonic poem Don Juan. The triumphant reception of this piece led to Strauss’s acclamation as Wagner’s heir and marked the start of his successful composing career. At Weimar, too, in 1894 he conducted the premiere of his first opera, Guntram, with his fiancée Pauline de Ahna in the leading soprano role. She had become his singing pupil in 1887, and they were married in September 1894. Pauline’s tempestuous, tactless, and outspoken personality was the reverse of her husband’s aloof and detached nature, and her eccentric behaviour is the subject of countless anecdotes, most of them true. Nevertheless the marriage between them was strong and successful; they adored each other and ended their days together 55 years later.
The years 1898 and 1899 saw the respective premieres of Strauss’s two most ambitious tone poems, Don Quixote and Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life). In 1904 he and Pauline, who was the foremost exponent of his songs, toured the United States, where in New York City he conducted the first performance of his Symphonia Domestica (Domestic Symphony). The following year, in Dresden, he enjoyed his first operatic success with Salome, based on Oscar Wilde’s play. Although Salome was regarded by some as blasphemous and obscene, it triumphed in all the major opera houses except Vienna, where the censor forbade Gustav Mahler to stage it.
In 1909 the opera Elektra marked Strauss’s first collaboration with the Austrian poet and dramatist Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Strauss wrote the music and Hofmannsthal the libretti for five more operas over the next 20 years. With the 1911 premiere of their second opera together, Der Rosenkavalier, they achieved a popular success of the first magnitude. Their subsequent operas together were Ariadne auf Naxos (1912; Ariadne on Naxos), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919; The Woman Without a Shadow), and Die ägyptische Helena (1928; The Egyptian Helen). But in 1929 Hofmannsthal died while working on the opera Arabella, leaving Strauss bereft.
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Richard Strauss' father Franz Joseph Strauss (1822-1905), managed to work his way out of poverty through his musical talent. A member of the Munich Court Opera from 1847, he was considered one of the best French horn players of his time. In 1863 he married Josepha Pschorr (1838-1910) who was a member of the affluent Pschorr brewery family.
The Richard Strauss Days are an annual event that transforms Garmisch-Partenkirchen into a vibrant musical oasis. During these days, music lovers from all over the world come together to enjoy the music of Richard Strauss in various forms. The festival offers concerts, opera performances, lectures and master classes covering the broad spectrum ...
Richard Strauss, a towering figure in late Romantic and early 20th-century music, left an indelible mark on the world of composition through his innovative orchestration, expansive tonal palette, and richly expressive works. Born on June 11, 1864, in Munich, Germany, he would become known for his diverse musical output, ranging from orchestral tone poems to operas and lieder.
Richard Strauss was a celebrated classical composer, born on 11 June 1864 in Munich, Germany. He was fully equipped with classical composition techniques at a very early age, and is considered one of the most prestigious composers of the first half of the 20th century. The major theme Strauss adhered to in his music was Romanticism, with a ...
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R. Strauss. Born: 1864. Died: 1949. Richard Strauss. The dramatic power, soaring intensity and grandeur in the operas and tone poems Strauss wrote between 1885 and 1910 has never been equalled. For his remaining 40 years, while certainly not resting on his laurels, he fell back on his extreme technical accomplishment, professional adroitness ...
