Part 14

RICHARD STRAUSS

The composer of Heldenleben is no longer unknown to Parisians. Every year at Colonne's or Chevillard's we see his tall, thin silhouette reappear in the conductor's desk. There he is with his abrupt and imperious gestures, his wan and anxious face, his wonderfully clear eyes, restless and penetrating at the same time, his mouth shaped like a child's, a moustache so fair that it is nearly white, and curly hair growing like a crown above his high round forehead.

I should like to try to sketch here the strange and arresting personality of the man who in Germany is considered the inheritor of Wagner's genius--the man who has had the audacity to write, after Beethoven, an Heroic Symphony, and to imagine himself the hero.

* * * * *

Richard Strauss is thirty-four years old. He was born in Munich on 11 June, 1864. His father, a well-known virtuoso, was first horn in the Royal orchestra, and his mother was a daughter of the brewer Pschorr. He was brought up among musical surroundings. At four years old he played the piano, and at six he composed little dances, Lieder, sonatas, and even overtures for the orchestra. Perhaps this extreme artistic precocity has had something to do with the feverish character of his talents, by keeping his nerves in a state of tension and unduly exciting his mind. At school he composed choruses for some of Sophocles' tragedies. In 1881, Hermann Levi had one of the young collegian's symphonies performed by his orchestra. At the University he spent his time in writing instrumental music. Then Buelow and Radecke made him play in Berlin; and Buelow, who became very fond of him, had him brought to Meiningen as Musikdirector. From 1886 to 1889 he held the same post at the Hoftheater in Munich. From 1889 to 1894 he was Kapellmeister at the Hoftheater in Weimar. He returned to Munich in 1894 as Hofkapellmeister, and in 1897 succeeded Hermann Levi. Finally, he left Munich for Berlin, where at present he conducts the orchestra of the Royal Opera.

Two things should be particularly noted in his life: the influence of Alexander Ritter--to whom he has shown much gratitude--and his travels in the south of Europe. He made Ritter's acquaintance in 1885. This musician was a nephew of Wagner's, and died some years ago. His music is practically unknown in France, though he wrote two well-known operas, Fauler Hans and Wem die Krone? and was the first composer, according to Strauss, to introduce Wagnerian methods into the Lied. He is often discussed in Buelow's and Liszt's letters. "Before I met him," says Strauss, "I had been brought up on strictly classical lines; I had lived entirely on Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and had just been studying Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms. It is to Ritter alone I am indebted for my knowledge of Liszt and Wagner; it was he who showed me the importance of the writings and works of these two masters in the history of art. It was he who by years of lessons and kindly counsel made me a musician of the future (Zukunftsmusiker), and set my feet on a road where now I can walk unaided and alone. It was he also who initiated me in Schopenhauer's philosophy."

The second influence, that of the South, dates from April, 1886, and seems to have left an indelible impression upon Strauss. He visited Rome and Naples for the first time, and came back with a symphonic fantasia called Aus Italien. In the spring of 1892, after a sharp attack of pneumonia, he travelled for a year and a half in Greece, Egypt, and Sicily. The tranquillity of these favoured countries filled him with never-ending regret. The North has depressed him since then, "the eternal grey of the North and its phantom shadows without a sun." When I saw him at Charlottenburg, one chilly April day, he told me with a sigh that he could compose nothing in winter, and that he longed for the warmth and light of Italy. His music is infected by that longing; and it makes one feel how his spirit suffers in the gloom of Germany, and ever yearns for the colours, the laughter, and the joy of the South.

Like the musician that Nietzsche dreamed of, he seems "to hear ringing in his ears the prelude of a deeper, stronger music, perhaps a more wayward and mysterious music; a music that is super-German, which, unlike other music, would not die away, nor pale, nor grow dull beside the blue and wanton sea and the clear Mediterranean sky; a music super-European, which would hold its own even by the dark sunsets of the desert; a music whose soul is akin to the palm trees; a music that knows how to live and move among great beasts of prey, beautiful and solitary; a music whose supreme charm is its ignorance of good and evil. Only from time to time perhaps there would flit over it the longing of the sailor for home, golden shadows, and gentle weaknesses; and towards it would come flying from afar the thousand tints of the setting of a moral world that men no longer understood; and to these belated fugitives it would extend its hospitality and sympathy." But it is always the North, the melancholy of the North, and "all the sadness of mankind," mental anguish, the thought of death, and the tyranny of life, that come and weigh down afresh his spirit hungering for light, and force it into feverish speculation and bitter argument. Perhaps it is better so.

* * * * *

Richard Strauss is both a poet and a musician. These two natures live together in him, and each strives to get the better of the other. The balance is not always well maintained; but when he does succeed in keeping it by sheer force of will the union of these two talents, directed to the same end, produces an effect more powerful than any known since Wagner's time. Both natures have their source in a mind filled with heroic thoughts--a rarer possession, I consider, than a talent for either music or poetry. There are other great musicians in Europe; but Strauss is something more than a great musician, for he is able to create a hero.

When one talks of heroes one is thinking of drama. Dramatic art is everywhere in Strauss's music, even in works that seem least adapted to it, such as his Lieder and compositions of pure music. It is most evident in his symphonic poems, which are the most important part of his work. These poems are: Wanderers Sturmlied (1885), Aus Italien (1886), Macbeth (1887), Don Juan (1888), Tod und Verklaerung (1889), Guntram (1892-93), Till Eulenspiegel (1894), Also sprach Zarathustra (1895), Don Quixote (1897), and Heldenleben (1898).

I shall not say much about the four first works, where the mind and manner of the artist is taking shape. The Wanderers Sturmlied (the song of a traveller during a storm, op. 14) is a vocal sextette with an orchestral accompaniment, whose subject is taken from a poem of Goethe's. It was written before Strauss met Ritter, and its construction is after the manner of Brahms, and shows a rather affected thought and style. Aus Italien (op. 16) is an exuberant picture of impressions of his tour in Italy, of the ruins at Rome, the seashore at Sorrento, and the life of the Italian people. Macbeth (op. 23) gives us a rather undistinguished series of musical interpretations of poetical subjects. Don Juan (op. 20) is much finer, and translates Lenau's poem into music with bombastic vigour, showing us the hero who dreams of grasping all the joy of the world, and how he fails, and dies after he has lost faith in everything.

Tod und Verklaerung ("Death and Transfiguration," op. 24) marks considerable progress in Strauss's thought and style. It is still one of the most stirring of Strauss's works, and the one that is conceived with the most perfect unity. It was inspired by a poem of Alexander Ritter's, and I will give you an idea of its subject.

In a wretched room, lit only by a nightlight, a sick man lies in bed. Death draws near him in the midst of awe-inspiring silence. The unhappy man seems to wander in his mind at times, and to find comfort in past memories. His life passes before his eyes: his innocent childhood, his happy youth, the struggles of middle age, and his efforts to attain the splendid goal of his desires, which always eludes him. He had been striving all his life for this goal, and at last thought it was within reach, when Death, in a voice of thunder, cries, suddenly, "Stop!" And even now in his agony he struggles desperately, being set upon realising his dream; but the hand of Death is crushing life out of his body, and night is creeping on. Then resounds in the heavens the promise of that happiness which he had vainly sought for on earth--Redemption and Transfiguration.

Richard Strauss's friends protested vigorously against this orthodox ending; and Seidl, Jorisenne, and Wilhelm Mauke pretended that the subject was something loftier, that it was the eternal struggle of the soul against its lower self and its deliverance by means of art. I shall not enter into that discussion, though I think that such a cold and commonplace symbolism is much less interesting than the struggle with death, which one feels in every note of the composition. It is a classical work, comparatively speaking; broad and majestic and almost like Beethoven in style. The realism of the subject in the hallucinations of the dying man, the shiverings of fever, the throbbing of the veins, and the despairing agony, is transfigured by the purity of the form in which it is cast. It is realism after the manner of the symphony in C minor, where Beethoven argues with Destiny. If all suggestion of a programme is taken away, the symphony still remains intelligible and impressive by its harmonious expression of feeling.

Richard Strauss, eine Charakterskizze, 1896, Prague.]

R. Strauss, Essai critique et biologique, 1898, Brussels.]

Der Musikfuehrer: Tod und Verklaerung, Frankfort.]

Many German musicians think that Strauss has reached the highest point of his work in Tod und Verklaerung. But I am far from agreeing with them, and believe myself that his art has developed enormously as the result of it. It is true it is the summit of one period of his life, containing the essence of all that is best in it; but Heldenleben marks the second period, and is its corner-stone. How the force and fulness of his feeling has grown since that first period! But he has never re-found the delicate and melodious purity of soul and youthful grace of his earlier work, which still shines out in Guntram, and is then effaced.

* * * * *

Strauss has directed Wagner's dramas at Weimar since 1889. While breathing their atmosphere he turned his attention to the theatre, and wrote the libretto of his opera Guntram. Illness interrupted his work, and he was in Egypt when he took it up again. The music of the first act was written between December, 1892, and February, 1893, while travelling between Cairo and Luxor; the second act was finished in June, 1893, in Sicily; and the third act early in September, 1893, in Bavaria. There is, however, no trace of an oriental atmosphere in this music. We find rather the melodies of Italy, the reflection of a mellow light, and a resigned calm. I feel in it the languid mind of the convalescent, almost the heart of a young girl whose tears are ready to flow, though she is smiling a little at her own sad dreams. It seems to me that Strauss must have a secret affection for this work, which owes its inspiration to the undefinable impressions of convalescence. His fever fell asleep in it, and certain passages are full of the caressing touch of nature, and recall Berlioz's Les Troyens. But too often the music is superficial and conventional, and the tyranny of Wagner makes itself felt--a rare enough occurrence in Strauss's other works. The poem is interesting; Strauss has put much of himself into it, and one is conscious of the crisis that unsettled his broad-minded but often self-satisfied and inconsistent ideas.

Strauss had been reading an historical study of an order of Minnesaenger and mystics, which was founded in Austria in the Middle Ages to fight against the corruption of art, and to save souls by the beauty of song. They called themselves Streiter der Liebe ("Warriors of Love"). Strauss, who was imbued at that time with neo-Christian ideas and the influence of Wagner and Tolstoy, was carried away by the subject, and took Guntram from the Streiter der Liebe, and made him his hero.

The action takes place in the thirteenth century, in Germany. The first act gives us a glade near a little lake. The country people are in revolt against the nobles, and have just been repulsed. Guntram and his master Friedhold distribute alms among them, and the band of defeated men then take flight into the woods. Left alone, Guntram begins to muse on the delights of springtime and the innocent awakening of Nature. But the thought of the misery that its beauty hides weighs upon him. He thinks of men's evil doing, of human suffering, and of civil war. He gives thanks to Christ for having led him to this unhappy country, kisses the cross, and decides to go to the court of the tyrant who is the cause of all the trouble, and make known to him the Divine revelation. At that moment Freihild appears. She is the wife of Duke Robert, who is the cruellest of all the nobles, and she is horrified by all that is happening around her; life seems hateful to her, and she wishes to drown herself. But Guntram prevents her; and the pity that her beauty and trouble had at first aroused changes unconsciously into love when he recognises her as the beloved princess and sole benefactress of the unhappy people. He tells her that God has sent him to her for her salvation. Then he goes to the castle, where he believes himself to be sent on the double mission of saving the people--and Freihild.

In the second act, the princes celebrate their victory in the Duke's castle. After some pompous talk on the part of the official Minnesaenger, Guntram is invited to sing. Discouraged beforehand by the wickedness of his audience, and feeling that he can sing to no purpose, he hesitates and is on the point of leaving them. But Freihild's sadness holds him back, and for her sake he sings. His song is at first calm and measured, and expresses the melancholy that fills him in the midst of a feast which celebrates triumphant power. He then loses himself in dreams, and sees the gentle figure of Peace moving among the company. He describes her lovingly and with youthful tenderness, which approaches ecstasy as he draws a picture of the ideal life of humanity made free. Then he paints War and Death, and the disorder and darkness that they spread over the world. He addresses himself directly to the Prince; he shows him his duty, and how the love of his people would be his recompense; he threatens him with the hate of the unhappy who are driven to despair; and, finally, he urges the nobles to rebuild the towns, to liberate their prisoners, and to come to the aid of their subjects. His song is ended amid the profound emotion of his audience. Duke Robert, feeling the danger of these outspoken words, orders his men to seize the singer; but the vassals side with Guntram. At this juncture news is brought that the peasants have renewed the attack. Robert calls his men to arms, but Guntram, who feels that he will be supported by those around him, orders Robert's arrest. The Duke draws his sword, but Guntram kills him. Then a sudden change comes over Guntram's spirit, which is explained in the third act. In the scene that follows he speaks no word, his sword falls from his hand, and he lets his enemies again assume their authority over the crowd; he allows himself to be bound and taken to prison, while the band of nobles noisily disperses to fight against the rebels. But Freihild is full of an unaffected and almost savage joy at her deliverance by Guntram's sword. Love for Guntram fills her heart, and her one desire is to save him.

The third act takes place in the prison of the chateau; and it is a surprising, uncertain, and very curious act. It is not a logical result of the action that has preceded it. One feels a sudden commotion in the poet's ideas, a crisis of feeling which disturbed him even as he wrote, and a difficulty which he did not succeed in solving. The new light towards which he was beginning to move appears very clearly. Strauss was too advanced in the composition of his work to escape the neo-Christian renouncement which had to finish the drama; he could only have avoided that by completely remodelling his characters. So Guntram rejects Freihild's love. He sees he has fallen, even as the others, under the curse of sin. He had preached charity to others when he himself was full of egoism; he had killed Robert rather to satisfy his instinctive and animal jealousy than to deliver the people from a tyrant. So he renounces his desires, and expiates the sin of being alive by retirement from the world. But the interest of the act does not lie in this anticipated denouement, which since Parsifal has become rather common; it lies in another scene, which has evidently been inserted at the last moment, and which is uncomfortably out of tune with the action, though in a singularly grand way. This scene gives us a dialogue between Guntram and his former companion, Friedhold.

Friedhold had initiated him in former days, and he now comes to reproach him for his crime, and to bring him before the Order, who will judge him. In the original version of the poem Guntram complies, and sacrifices his passion to his vow. But while Strauss had been travelling in the East he had conceived a sudden horror for this Christian annihilation of will, and Guntram revolts along with him, and refuses to submit to the rules of his Order. He breaks his lute--a symbol of false hope in the redemption of humanity through faith--and rouses himself from the glorious dreams in which he used to believe, for he sees they are shadows that are scattered by the light of real life. He does not abjure his former vows; but he is not the same man he was when he made them. While his experience was immature he was able to believe that a man ought to submit himself to rules, and that life should be governed by laws. A single hour has enlightened him. Now he is free and alone--alone with his spirit. "I alone can lessen my suffering; I alone can expiate my crime. Through myself alone God speaks to me; to me alone God speaks. Ewig einsam." It is the proud awakening of individualism, the powerful pessimism of the Super-man. Such an expression of feeling gives the character of action to renouncement and even to negation itself, for it is a strong affirmation of the will.

I have dwelt rather at length on this drama on account of the real value of its thought and, above all, on account of what one may call its autobiographical interest. It was at this time that Strauss's mind began to take more definite form. His further experience will develop that form still more, but without making any important change in it.

Guntram was the cause of bitter disappointment to its author. He did not succeed in getting it produced at Munich, for the orchestra and singers declared that the music could not be performed. It is even said that they got an eminent critic to draw up a formal document, which they sent to Strauss, certifying that Guntram was not meant to be sung. The chief difficulty was the length of the principal part, which took up by itself, in its musings and discourses, the equivalent of an act and a half. Some of its monologues, like the song in the second act, last half an hour on end. Nevertheless, Guntram was performed at Weimar on 16 May, 1894. A little while afterwards Strauss married the singer who played Freihild, Pauline de Ahna, who had also created Elizabeth in Tannhaeuser at Bayreuth, and who has since devoted herself to the interpretation of her husband's Lieder.