Solti - Richard Strauss - Op.119

Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949) Op.119

This music is recorded 1936. Richard Strauss conducts his "Olympia", for choir and orchestra. Op.119

Enjoy a fantastic historical recording with a legend holding the conductor's stick!


mp3: Olympia - Richard Strauss conducts live 1936: http://rasiel.web.infoseek.co.jp/mil/mp3/olympia.mp3

Relive Jesse Owens's (USA-athletics) legendary performance at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
He won four gold medals in track and field events.

Watch the American athlete Jesse Owen's winning gold four times: http://wm.video.olympic.org/wms/dvd_s_19win100-500.wmv
__________________________________________________ _________________

May 1945

He was a man of 81, the house in Garmisch could no longer be heated, grandma was unwell. One day I saw the occupying troops in the garden and called him out of his study: "the Americans want to occupy the house!” "We’ll see about that,” he replied, and went out, armed with his honorary doctorates and honorary citizen awards from New York, Michigan, Connecticut etc. He said to the soldiers, "I am the composer of Rosenkavalier and Salome and I hope you feel well here in Garmisch.” Some of the men really knew who he was. Within half an hour an "off limits” sign stamped by the commander was attached to the fence. Thankfully, the house was spared occupation and looting.


tip: watch the Jesse Owen clip in fullscreen.

Historical overview of Richard Strauss: Richard Strauss - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"They called me the Prussian Bastard when I worked in Munich, also "The Hungarian disaster!", says Sir Georg Solti bursting out in laughter in his famous documentary. But within a short time Solti had captured everybody's heart and the warm friendship with Richard Strauss and his wife Pauline changed the public's attitude forever.

Sir Georg Solti was born Gyorgy Stern in Budapest in 1912, the son of a jewish corn merchant.
At 6, he began studying piano at the Liszt Academy in the city and later began a career as a concert pianist. At 20, he joined the Budapest Opera, there taking the name Solti, and made his debut as a conductor with the opera in 1938.

Solti spent much of the Second World War in Switzerland to escape from persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi-influenced Horthy regime in Hungary.
Immediately after the war, he was invited to conduct the Munich-based Bavarian State Opera and served as its musical director from 1946-52.
During this period, he changed his name to the German form, Georg, and became friends with the German composer Richard Strauss, then living near Munich. Solti arranged the composer's 85th birthday celebrations in 1949.

more about Solti: Georg Solti - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Strauss and Mahler, colleagues and friends for life: Symphony I

I know its probably German or Latin, what are they saying? (The choir)

Originally Posted by Sir Violinist1

I know its probably German or Latin, what are they saying? (The choir)

Hi Violinist 1!

Your alias sounds like you're a concertmaster in an orchestra, are you?

Anyway here is the german text in the beginning of Richard's Olympia hymn:
"Völker! Seid des Volkes Gäste, kommt durch's offne Tor herein!".

I translate: "People! Be the guests of people, come in through the open gate!".

Here is the entire text: by Robert Lubahn

Völker! Seid des Volkes Gäste, kommt durch's offne Tor herein!
Friede sei dem Völkerfeste! Ehre soll der Kampfspruch sein.
Junge Kraft will Mut beweisen, heißes Spiel Olympia!
deinen Glanz in Taten preisen, reines Ziel: Olympia.
Vieler Länder Stolz und Blüte kam zum Kampfesfest herbei;
alles Feuer das da glühte, schlägt zusammen hoch und frei.
Kraft und Geist naht sich mit Zagen. Opfergang Olympia!
Wer darf deinen Lorbeer tragen, Ruhmesklang: Olympia?

Wie nun alle Herzenschlagen in erhobenem Verein,
soll in Taten und in Sagen Eidestreu das Höchste sein.
Freudvoll sollen Meistersiegen, Siegesfest Olympia!
Freude sei noch im Erliegen, Friedensfest: Olympia.
Freudvoll sollen Meistersiegen, Siegesfest Olympia!
Olympia! Olympia! Olympia!


Fredrik

not exactly a concert master, hope to be one soon though! Thanks for the text.

Originally Posted by Sir Violinist1

not exactly a concert master, hope to be one soon though! Thanks for the text.

Here is a sample of a better sounding recording of the same music:

Amazon.com: Olympische Hymne, TrV 266 (arr. for brass band): MP3 Downloads: Locke Brass Consort


Fredrik

I generally like Strauss... I have to admit I just didn't get into this piece. It was a bit too pompous and "official". I guess the Nazi guns pointed at his head while he composed it were an added distraction?

Guns? Wasn't he PRO nazi? :x

Originally Posted by SSC

Guns? Wasn't he PRO nazi? :x

no, he wasn't.

quote from a Wiki bio:

There is much controversy surrounding Strauss's role in Germany after the Nazi Party came to power. Some say that he was constantly apolitical, and never cooperated with the Nazis completely. Others point out that he was an official of the Third Reich. Several noted musicians disapproved of his conduct while the Nazis were in power, among them the conductor Arturo Toscanini, who famously said, "To Strauss the composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again."[2]

In November 1933, without consultation with Strauss, Joseph Goebbels appointed him to the post of president of the Reichsmusikkammer, the State Music Bureau. Strauss decided to keep his post but to remain apolitical, a decision which has been criticized as naïve, but perhaps the most sensible one considering the circumstances. While in this position he composed the Olympische Hymne for the 1936 Olympics, and also befriended some high-ranking Nazis. Evidently his intent was to protect his daughter-in-law Alice, who was Jewish, from persecution. In 1935, Strauss was forced to resign his position as Reichsmusikkammer president, after refusing to remove from the playbill for Die schweigsame Frau the name of the Jewish librettist, his friend Stefan Zweig. He had written Zweig a supportive letter, insulting to the Nazis, which was intercepted by the Gestapo. By the time he conducted the Olympische Hymne at the Berlin Olympic Stadium in 1936, he was no longer president of the Reichsmusikkammer.

His decision to produce Friedenstag in 1938, a one-act opera set in a besieged fortress during the Thirty Years' War – essentially a hymn to peace and a thinly veiled criticism of the Third Reich – during a time when an entire nation was preparing for war, has been seen as extraordinarily brave. With its contrasts between freedom and enslavement, war and peace, light and dark, this work has been considered more related to Fidelio than to any of Strauss's other recent operas. Production ceased shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939.

When his daughter-in-law Alice was placed under house arrest in Garmisch in 1938, Strauss used his connections in Berlin, for example the Berlin Intendant Heinz Tietjen, to secure her safety; in addition, there are also suggestions that he attempted to use his official position to protect other Jewish friends and colleagues. Unfortunately Strauss left no specific records or commentary regarding his feeling about Nazi anti-Semitism, so most of the reconstruction of his motivations during the period are conjectural. While most of his actions during the 1930s were midway between outright collaboration and dissidence, it was only in his music that the dissident streak was, in retrospect, more obvious, such as in the pacifist drama Friedenstag.

In 1942, Strauss moved with his family back to Vienna, where Alice and her children could be protected by Baldur von Schirach, the Gauleiter of Vienna. Unfortunately, even Strauss was unable to protect his Jewish relatives completely; in early 1944, while Strauss was away, Alice and the composer's son were abducted by the Gestapo and imprisoned for two nights. Only Strauss's personal intervention at this point was able to save them, and he was able to take the two of them back to Garmisch, where they remained, under house arrest, until the end of the war.

Originally Posted by Qccowboy

I generally like Strauss... I have to admit I just didn't get into this piece. It was a bit too pompous and "official". I guess the Nazi guns pointed at his head while he composed it were an added distraction?

I agree this piece was just offical for my taste. I've never really got into it.

Originally Posted by Qccowboy

I generally like Strauss... I have to admit I just didn't get into this piece. It was a bit too pompous and "official". I guess the Nazi guns pointed at his head while he composed it were an added distraction?

I was not so impressed either the first time I listened to this piece, but the main Olympia theme became more and more interesting after several times of listening. Now I like it a lot and will purchase the full score and go through the details.

For those who are interested in documentaries, there is one very interesting with the famous conductor Sir Georg Solti. In the interview he describes his great admiration for Richard Strauss, on this dvd there is film footage with Solti and Strauss talking together and exchanging ideas. In one chapter of this dvd we see Richard conducting one of his operas at the high age of 85, it was the year 1949 when the master also died. He said to Solti "I will conduct, but I can't see anything and I can't hear anything either...!, so tell me where are the trumpets and the timpani?"
Those are rare historical moments to be enjoyed buying this dvd called "Maestro Solti".

Solti continues and describes how difficult it was for him to go back to Germany and start a career as conductor there considering that he was a jew, when he got invited by a german friend who wanted to give him a fresh start and chance as a conductor. "But I had to leave America, and I had no job and was getting depressed doing nothing!, so I went to the country of Wagner and Richard Strauss who I adored, even though I knew what a arrogant and terrible person Wagner had been, writing antisemitistic documents that slaughtered Mendelssohn, resulting in him not being performed at all when the Nazis took over".

Another wonderful episode is when Strauss sitting behing his huge piano in his home at Garmisch-Partenkirchen and playing parts from his opera "Der Rosenkavalier". The footage on this disc are fabulous and I recommend fans of Strauss to buy it.

So, back to "Olympische Hymne". Having heard many of Richard Strauss most famous music, so I found it interesting to show something that most people have not heard before, then I mean those who only have heard "Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra". I write the title in french for the Quebecians


Thanks for listening!

Fredrik.