Strauss - turn-of-the-century whipping boy?

Richard Strauss

I need to dig up more Strauss to check out...seems like he ruffled a lot of feathers back then. Was he innovative? a visionary? or just really bad? I dunno...here's some quotes that prompted this inquisition.

"I employ cacophony to outrage people" ~ Richard Strauss

"Such an astonishing lack of talent was never before united to such pretentiousness." ~ P. I. Tchaikovsky

"[Of Till Eulenspiegel] This piece might be called 'an hour of original music in a lunatic asylum." ~ Claude Debussy

"His absurd cacophony will not be music even in the 30th century." ~ Cesar Cui

"[Of Der Rosenkavalier] Cheap and poor." ~ Igor Stravinsky

"[Of the Alpensymphonie] That's a real piece of hocus-pocus...better to hang oneself than ever to write music like that." ~ Paul Hindemith

"I once spent a couple of days in a train with a German friend of mine. We amused ourselves by discovering how many notes we could take out of Heldenleben and leave the music essentially intact. By the time we had finished we had taken out 15,000." ~ Sir Thomas Beecham

...

Wow. Strauss...deserving of such harsh criticisms, or was everybody just plaing wrong??

Suggest to me some good Strauss to sink my teeth into ... sounds like my kind of fellow.

Dude, Salome! One of the best operas out there. Famous for the Dance of the Seven Veils.

And if you're a nerd, the opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra :)

Another great opera is Elektra, which includes the only parts of atonal music he ever wrote. For orchestral stuff, the ENTIRE Also Sprach Zarathustra, Alpine Symphony (Hindemith is wrong!) and my personal favorite - Death and Transfiguration (tone poem.)

His Four Last Songs are pretty neat.

"Till Eulenspiegel is a noisy, nerve-destroying, heavy piece of work, crude in color, confusing in design, and utterly unlovable."

- Boston Gazette

"Till Eulenspiegel casts into the deepest shade the wildest efforts of the wildest follower of the modern school. It is a blood-curdling nightmare."

- Boston Herald

"I am bound to say that dreary though most musical humor is, Strauss's is the dreariest that has ever bored me. I contemptuously dismiss Till Eulenspiegel as a pretentious piece of smart shoddy."

- J. F. Runciman, Saturday Review, London

"I saw the score of Don Quixote. What a shameless [epithet deleted] this Richard Strauss is!"

- Rimsky-Korsakov

"Strauss may be characterized in four words: little talent, much impudence. His method is to overwhelm the listener at once. That is why he makes his violins scream, his flutes hiss, his trumpets blare, his cymbals crash. A free for all, everybody for himself, resulting in a terrible cacophony and noise, in which one is lost. So it goes on for about four or five minutes. Then there is a sharp contrast and a lull with something resembling decent music. This music is of the most ordinary sort, but after the preceding it sounds like paradise. But even into these trivial episodes, Strauss constantly throws various wrong notes, perhaps to cover up this triviality. After that the wild cacophony is resume, like a real bedlam. Then there is another lull, and a forced original ending, as flabbergasting at the beginning. This is not music, this is a mockery of music. Yet, Strauss has admirers. How can this be explained? One can understand the desire of some composers to attain fame cheaply with the aid of an insolent, wild, and ludicrous cacophony, but the attitude of the listeners who tolerate it without realizing that they are being mocked at, is incomprehensible. It would be interesting to make this experiment: put blank music sheets before the conductor and the players. Let the musicians play anything they wish and let the conductor conduct anything he wishes, giving cues, and indicating the time, the tempo, and the intensity of sound at random. Perhaps the result would be even more remarkable in its genius than Strauss himself!"

- Cesar Cui

(those Russians were on a real warpath against Strauss, eh)

Modern Opera

Hark! from the pit and fearsome sound

That makes your blood run cold.

Symphony cyclones rush around-

And the worst is yet untold.

No - they unchain those dogs of war,

The wild sarrusophones,

A double-bass E-flat to roar

Whilst crunching dead men's bones.

The muted tuba's dismal groan

Uprising from the gloom

And answered by the heckelphone,

Suggests the crack of doom.

Oh, mama! is this the earthquake zone?

What ho, there! stand from under!

Or is that the tonitruone

Just imitating thunder?

Nay, fear not, little one, because

Of this sublime rough-house;

'Tis modern opera by the laws

Of Master Richard Strauss.

- New York World

Why so much backlash towards poor Mr. Strauss? Did anyone like his music back then?!

"I have heard ladies and little Wagnerites speak of Strauss's Don Juan with enthusiasm. Others found the thing simply repellent. This is no tone picture, but a confusion of blinding color splashes, a stuttering tonal delirium. That he, as a disciple of the Berlioz-Liszt-Wagner school, has set in motion a huge orchestral apparatus for his tone people, goes without saying... The highest (and heretofore inapplicable in the orchestra) violin notes cut as sharp as glass in our ears; a glockenspiel raises every moment its childish tinkle. We might almost wish that quite a lot more of such tone pictures were composed soon as a non plus ultra of a false unrestrained direction. Then a reaction will not fail to assure a return to a healthy musical music."

- Eduard Hanslick (music critic, ally of Brahms)

I love these quotes! :D

I find him to be the shame of the Berlioz-Liszt-Wagner school... :P

Although I don't like Wagner much, I clearly recognize his genius. In Strauss I recognize nothing.

"Wagner est

"Wagner est

Here's another to get your blood boiling. :huh:

"Of all the b

"Strauss stinks." - Saint-Saens

"I hate Strauss." - Tchaikovsky

"If I could hear it, I'm sure I would hate Strauss' music." - Beethoven

"Strauss is a terrible composer." - Mozart

"Strauss composes like a two-year-old would. Bah!" - Bach

Oh, yeah, where did ya get those, Rafn? Sources? :wub:

I love Richard Strauss, I definately would suggest his horn concertos, there are two of them. I find them both glorius, and I have played the first. Wonderful piece. YouTube - Richard Strauss: Horn Concerto No.1, 1st movement=

It is quite funny actually to see how the opinions of Strauss have changed so much over time. ;)

"Strauss stinks." - Saint-Saens

"I hate Strauss." - Tchaikovsky

"If I could hear it, I'm sure I would hate Strauss' music." - Beethoven

"Strauss is a terrible composer." - Mozart

"Strauss composes like a two-year-old would. Bah!" - Bach

"Strauss is my hero. I wish I could have his child." Bach's wife (2nd one, 1st cousin)

"Strauss can ride in my boat anytime" Noah

"I would part the waters for Strauss." Moses

"He mixes butterflies with honey." Confuscious

"Let them eat cake.....except for Strauss of course" Marie Antoinette

I read that Strauss didn't really care what his critics said. I also read that after a while his inspiration ran out- whether this is true, I don't know for sure. Perhaps he was just a bit ahead of his time- our modern day ears can tolerate more than the ears of those in the 19th century. Strauss was also critized for joining the Nazi's "Chamber of Culture", but needles to say, he couldn't stomach Nazi ideals and left, after which he was regarded in a better light.

Here is actually a non-criticizing modern quote about Strauss from a New Zeland composer:

When I perform Strauss, it is as if the music fits me like a glove. My voice seems to lie in a happy area in this music, which is lyrical and passionate at the same time. -Kiri Te Kanawa

Here's another modern one that I think is congratulating:

A hundred years ago, when Richard Strauss, who has already been quoted and already been heard today, and other creative people, laid the foundation stone for the joint assertion of their rights and interests, they had pioneering work ahead of them in Germany. -Johannes Rau

I read that Strauss didn't really care what his critics said.

And so he shouldn't.

Just a coincidence, but the name of the small ship to the left is the Joseph Strauss (DDG 16).

The one below is the John Rodgers (DD983)

I don't like his music that much, it's jsut too long winded and I don't know, he's never been one of my favorites and yes, I have tried to listen to a lot of his music.

I saw Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings this past spring and was blown away. Great emotional piece.