Description
Book SynopsisStrongly influencing European musical life from the 1880s through the First World War and remaining highly productive into the 1940s, Richard Strauss enjoyed a remarkable career in a constantly changing artistic and political climate. This volume presents six original essays on Strauss''s musical works--including tone poems, lieder, and operas--and brings together letters, memoirs, and criticism from various periods of the composer''s life. Many of these materials appear in English for the first time. In the essays Leon Botstein contradicts the notion of the composer''s stylistic about face after Elektra; Derrick Puffett reinforces the argument for Strauss''s artistic consistency by tracing in the tone poems and operas the phenomenon of pitch specificity; James Hepokoski establishes Strauss as an early modernist in an examination of Macbeth; Michael Steinberg probes the composer''s political sensibility as expressed in the 1930s through his music and use of such texts as Friedenstag
Trade Review
"This book of essays, letters, memoirs, and criticism is a most cordial study of Strauss and his music... This is a significant book that gives readers a very positive assessment of a very important 20th-century composer."--Choice
Table of Contents
Preface and AcknowledgmentsPt. IEssaysThe Enigmas of Richard Strauss: A Revisionist View3Daphne's Transformation33Structure and Program in Macbeth: A Proposed Reading of Strauss's First Symphonic Poem67Ruhe, meine Seele! and the Letzte Orchesterlieder90"Lass Er die Musi, wo sie ist": Pitch Specificity in Strauss138Richard Strauss and the Question164Pt. IILettersSelections from the Strauss-Thuille CorrespondenceA Glimpse of Strauss during His Formative Years193Selections from the Strauss-Gregor Correspondence: The Genesis of Daphne237Pt. IIIMemoirsRichard Strauss: The Man273Richard Strauss: Seer and Idealist280Richard Strauss at Eighty287The Last Visit with Richard Strauss295Pt. IVCriticism and ReceptionOn the Tone Poems of Richard Strauss305Strauss and the Viennese Critics (1896-1924): Reviews by Gustav Schoenaich, Robert Hirschfeld, Guido Adler, Max Kalbeck, Julius Korngold, and Karl Klaus311Elektra: A Study by Paul Bekker372Richard Strauss at Sixty406Index of Names and Compositions417List of Contributors425
