SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
Strauss’s subjects
But it is especially in Strauss’s subjects that caprice and a disordered imagination, the enemy of all reason, seem to reign. We have seen that these poems try to express in turn, or even simultaneously, literary texts, pictures, anecdotes, philosophical ideas, and the personal sentiments of the composer. What unity is there in the adventures of Don Quixote or Till Eulenspiegel? And yet unity is there, not in the subjects, but in the mind that deals with them. And these descriptive symphonies with their very diffuse literary life are vindicated by their musical life, which is much more logical and concentrated. The caprices of the poet are held in rein by the musician. The whimsical Till disports himself «after the old form of rondeau,» and the folly of Don Quixote is told in «ten variations on a chivalrous theme, with an introduction and finale.» In this way, Strauss’s art, one of the most literary and descriptive in existence, is strongly distinguished from others of the same kind by the solidarity of its musical fabric, in which one feels the true musician–a musician brought up on the great masters, and a classic in spite of everything.
And so throughout that music a strong unity is felt among the unruly and often incongruous elements. It is the reflection, so it seems to me, of the soul of the composer. Its unity is not a matter of what he feels, but a matter of what he wishes. His emotion is much less interesting to him than his will, and it is less intense, and often quite devoid of any personal character. His restlessness seems to come from Schumann, his religious feeling from Mendelssohn, his voluptuousness from Gounod or the Italian masters, his passion from Wagner.[181] But his will is heroic, dominating, eager, and powerful to a sublime degree. And that is why Richard Strauss is noble and, at present, quite unique. One feels in him a force that has dominion over men.
[Footnote 181: In Guntram one could even believe that he had made up his mind to use a phrase in Tristan, as if he could not find anything better to express passionate desire.]
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It is through this heroic side that he may be considered as an inheritor of some of Beethoven’s and Wagner’s thought. It is this heroic side which makes him a poet–one of the greatest perhaps in modern Germany, who sees herself reflected in him and in his hero. Let us consider this hero.
this was: Strauss’s Subjects
go to next chapter: unbounded faith in the power
