Richard Strauss / Michael Kennedy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kennedy, Michael, 1926-2014.

Series:

Master musicians series

The master musicians

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Strauss, Richard, 1864-1949.

Strauss, Richard.

Composers--Germany--Biography.

Composers.

Germany.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xi, 237 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Edition:

First American edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Schirmer Books ; London : Prentice Hall International, 1995.

Summary:

"I cannot bear the tragedy of the present time", wrote Richard Strauss in 1924. "I want to create joy. I need it". In a career that extended from the age of Wagner and Brahms to the middle of the twentieth century, Strauss wrote music that kept alive the German Romantic ideals of melody and emotional expressiveness. Among his fifteen operas are the beloved Der Rosenkavalier with its bittersweet evocation of bygone days in imperial Vienna, the ingenious Ariadne auf Naxos, and other works that hold the stage to this day. His brilliant tone poems for orchestra include such staples of the repertory as Death and Transfiguration, Don Juan, Ein Heldenleben, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, and Also sprach Zarathustra - source of the famous "sunrise" music used in the film 2001. A distinguished composer of songs, chamber music, and ballets as well, Strauss was also one of the outstanding conductors of his time, directing opera companies in Weimar, Munich, Berlin, and Vienna. In his young manhood, Strauss was regarded by many as a leader of the dissonant avant-garde; his early operas Salome and Elektra feature a harmonic vocabulary that ventures to the brink of the atonal, as well as subject matter considered scandalous at the time. But by the 1930s, Strauss's refusal to follow in the footsteps of Schoenberg and the modernists had led to his being written off as a reactionary. Michael Kennedy challenges this verdict with a comprehensive appreciation of Strauss's music and an evenhanded assessment of his life, including his tempestuous marriage to Pauline de Ahna and his controversial relationship with the Nazi regime. Contradicting the received opinion that Strauss's genius declined after DerRosenkavalier, this authoritative study makes the case for Strauss as a key figure in the history of the last hundred years of music, widely misrepresented and misunderstood.

Contents:

1 Munich childhood 1

2 'Richard the Third' 7

3 Tone-poet 14

4 Weimar and Munich 20

5 A hero's life 32

6 Vulcan's labours 40

7 Comedy for music 47

8 Airy-fairy 51

9 The crisis 58

10 Vienna 64

11 Helen and Arabella 77

12 Under the Nazis 85

13 Gregor and Krauss 95

14 Greeting to the world 106

15 Early works 114

16 The tone-poems 120

17 The operas (1) 132

18 The operas (2) 162

19 Ballets and other orchestral works 175

20 Songs and choral music 184.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-228) and index.

ISBN:

0028645170

OCLC:

68239837