Richard Strauss was born in Munich, Germany, on June 11, 1864. He is not related to the Austrian Johann Strauss family, famous for their waltzes.
His father, Franz Straussm was the principal horn player at the Court Opera in Munich. He was considered one of the greatest horn players of Germany.
Young Richard showed early signs of musical talent. When he was 4 years old he played the piano well. At the age of 6 he was composing, and at 10 he was studying music seriously.
Young Richard heard his first Richard Wagner operas, Lohengrin and Tannhäuser when he was 10-years-old. The influence of Wagner's music on Strauss's style was to be profound as he combined the great German composer's mastery of orchestration with a strong sense of realism. However, at first Richard's musically conservative father forbade him to study Wagner's work. Indeed, in the Strauss household, the music of the revolutionary German was viewed with deep suspicion, and it was not until the age of 16 that Richard was able to obtain a score of Tristan und Isolde.
Strauss was a very good conductor and often conducted his own music, which up to the last decade of the 19th century were not unusual. Indeed, he was known chiefly as conductor of the Munich opera. However, in 1885, he met Alexander Ritter, a noted composer and violinist, and the husband of one of Richard Wagner's nieces. It was Ritter who persuaded Strauss to abandon the conservative style of his youth and begin writing tone poems.
The new influences from Ritter resulted in what is widely regarded as Strauss's first piece to show his mature personality, the tone poem "Don Juan" (1888), which displays a new kind of virtuosity in its bravura orchestral manner.
Strauss' symphonic poems, including "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" (1894-95) and "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (1895-96), have grown increasingly popular. Many of his songs, with their melodic beauty, are today universal favorites.
"Thus Spake Zarathustra" is based on the works of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who once claimed "We have art in order that we may not die."
Although he could write beautiful melodies, and often did, in many of his compositions for orchestra, Strauss seemed less interested in melody and more interested in injecting unusual realism into his music.
Strauss introduced radical innovations, often employing discordant tone combinations and asking the orchestra to produce extraordinary effects. The hissing of steam was reproduced by rubbing a drumhead with brushes, and the trampling of horses' feet by means of a wooden drum beaten with tubular sticks.
Storms of criticism followed the appearance of each new work. Strauss won a place, however, among the foremost composers of the day and such effects, novel in his day, have been widely used by numerous later composers.
After 1900 Strauss spent most of his time writing operas. He began this portion of his career by fashioning two powerful and shocking works. Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909) which drew on Strauss's skills as a master orchestrator of tone poems and as a composer of songs. Both works push tonality to its limits, paint lurid characters, and treat the voice with great virtuosity.
After these works, though, Strauss's career grew more conservative in such works as Der Rosenkavalier (1911), which is today his most liked opera, Die Frau Ohne Schatten (1919), and Arabella (1933)
Strauss married soprano Pauline de Ahna on September 10, 1894. She was famous for being irascible, garrulous, shrewish, eccentric and outspoken, but to all appearances their relationship was essentially happy, and she was a great source of inspiration to him.
The Strausses had one son, Franz, who was born in 1897.
Though Strauss was immensely wealthy, he was notoriously mean. His wife Pauline ruled his life with a rod of iron, she gave her husband a small allowance to live on. He would supplement this by insisting that members of the orchestra played a card game, Skat, with him. They could hardly refuse and invariably lost. Though most could ill afford the amounts of money involved, Strauss always insisted on being paid.
When American soldiers came to the house of Richard Strauss in 1945, the famous German composer identified himself: "I am Richard Strauss, the composer of Rosenkavalier and Salome." One of the soldiers was a musician, and placed a sign at the home so others would not bother him.
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| Portrait of Strauss by Max Liebermann (1918) |
His father, Franz Straussm was the principal horn player at the Court Opera in Munich. He was considered one of the greatest horn players of Germany.
Young Richard showed early signs of musical talent. When he was 4 years old he played the piano well. At the age of 6 he was composing, and at 10 he was studying music seriously.
Young Richard heard his first Richard Wagner operas, Lohengrin and Tannhäuser when he was 10-years-old. The influence of Wagner's music on Strauss's style was to be profound as he combined the great German composer's mastery of orchestration with a strong sense of realism. However, at first Richard's musically conservative father forbade him to study Wagner's work. Indeed, in the Strauss household, the music of the revolutionary German was viewed with deep suspicion, and it was not until the age of 16 that Richard was able to obtain a score of Tristan und Isolde.
 |
| Strauss aged 22 |
Strauss was a very good conductor and often conducted his own music, which up to the last decade of the 19th century were not unusual. Indeed, he was known chiefly as conductor of the Munich opera. However, in 1885, he met Alexander Ritter, a noted composer and violinist, and the husband of one of Richard Wagner's nieces. It was Ritter who persuaded Strauss to abandon the conservative style of his youth and begin writing tone poems.
The new influences from Ritter resulted in what is widely regarded as Strauss's first piece to show his mature personality, the tone poem "Don Juan" (1888), which displays a new kind of virtuosity in its bravura orchestral manner.
Strauss' symphonic poems, including "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" (1894-95) and "Thus Spake Zarathustra" (1895-96), have grown increasingly popular. Many of his songs, with their melodic beauty, are today universal favorites.
"Thus Spake Zarathustra" is based on the works of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who once claimed "We have art in order that we may not die."
Although he could write beautiful melodies, and often did, in many of his compositions for orchestra, Strauss seemed less interested in melody and more interested in injecting unusual realism into his music.
Strauss introduced radical innovations, often employing discordant tone combinations and asking the orchestra to produce extraordinary effects. The hissing of steam was reproduced by rubbing a drumhead with brushes, and the trampling of horses' feet by means of a wooden drum beaten with tubular sticks.
Storms of criticism followed the appearance of each new work. Strauss won a place, however, among the foremost composers of the day and such effects, novel in his day, have been widely used by numerous later composers.
After 1900 Strauss spent most of his time writing operas. He began this portion of his career by fashioning two powerful and shocking works. Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909) which drew on Strauss's skills as a master orchestrator of tone poems and as a composer of songs. Both works push tonality to its limits, paint lurid characters, and treat the voice with great virtuosity.
After these works, though, Strauss's career grew more conservative in such works as Der Rosenkavalier (1911), which is today his most liked opera, Die Frau Ohne Schatten (1919), and Arabella (1933)
Strauss married soprano Pauline de Ahna on September 10, 1894. She was famous for being irascible, garrulous, shrewish, eccentric and outspoken, but to all appearances their relationship was essentially happy, and she was a great source of inspiration to him.
The Strausses had one son, Franz, who was born in 1897.
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| Strauss with his wife and son, 1910 |
Though Strauss was immensely wealthy, he was notoriously mean. His wife Pauline ruled his life with a rod of iron, she gave her husband a small allowance to live on. He would supplement this by insisting that members of the orchestra played a card game, Skat, with him. They could hardly refuse and invariably lost. Though most could ill afford the amounts of money involved, Strauss always insisted on being paid.
When American soldiers came to the house of Richard Strauss in 1945, the famous German composer identified himself: "I am Richard Strauss, the composer of Rosenkavalier and Salome." One of the soldiers was a musician, and placed a sign at the home so others would not bother him.
Soon after the Munich celebrations of the composer's 85th birthday, Strauss began to suffer from heart failure and other ailments. He died at the age of 85 on September 8, 1949.
Sources Compton's Encyclopedia, Classic FM magazine
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