WAGNER AND STRAUSS
Notes on the composers and the pieces
Richard Wagner (arr. Henk de Vlieger)
Meistersinger—An Orchestral Tribute
Richard Strauss
Suite from Der Rosenkavalier
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Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was the son of Franz Strauss, the principal horn of the Munich Court Orchestra. He took up piano and violin at a young age, attended rehearsals of his father’s orchestra, joined the orchestra at age thirteen, and studied music with colleagues rather than attend a conservatory. Many of his early works were performed, but it was the Serenade in E-Flat that caught the ear of Hans von Bulow. The conductor programmed it and other Strauss works, particularly the Second Symphony. Von Bulow also hired Strauss as assistant conductor with his Meiningen orchestra and promoted him for a conducting position in Munich. Those posts and the Chief Conductor baton at the Royal Court Opera in Berlin (1898) were important to a young man who earned much of his living as a conductor.
Until 1885, Strauss’s music displayed classical forms and the influence of Brahms. That changed when he met Alexander Ritter, a violinist in his Meiningen and Munich orchestras who was married to Wagner’s niece and had worked with Liszt. Ritter turned Strauss toward Wagner and introduced the young man to the “basic principle of Liszt’s symphonic works, in which the poetic idea...became...the guiding principle for my [Strauss] symphonic work.” The result was Aus Italien and a series of tone poems: Macbeth, Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, Ein Heldenleben, and Symphonia Domestica.
Opera was the logical next step, and Strauss began with the Wagnerian Guntram, which received a hostile reception in 1892. In 1901 he came out with the more Straussian Feurersnot, a slap at the critics of Guntram. The revolutionary and licentious Salome (1905), put Strauss on the operatic map with explosive force, and the brutal Elektra (1909) pushed tonality to its limits. Strauss was a revelation to the modernists who had also received Schoenberg’s Erwartung, Five Orchestral Pieces (both 1909), Berg’s Piano Sonata (1908), and Webern’s Stefan George Songs (1909), all atonal works. When Strauss came out with his next opera in 1911, modernists had Schoenberg’s Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke (1911), Webern’s Six Pieces for Large Orchestra (1910), Four Pieces for Violin and Piano (1910), and Rilke Lieder (1910).
“Now I am going to write a Mozart opera,” Strauss promised, and surprised everyone with Der Rosenkavalier (1911), adapted by Hugo von Hofmannsthal from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai (1790) and Molière’s Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1669). The opera may refer stylistically to Mozart, but the luscious melodies, rich, chromatic harmony, and brilliant, colorful orchestration are vintage Strauss. Der Rosenkavalier is set in the 1740s, but features the waltz, a dance associated with Nineteenth Century Vienna. The work was and remains popular. Those out-of-their-time waltzes were so popular that Strauss wrote one and possibly both Waltz Sequences for the concert hall. His next opera, Ariadne auf Naxos (1912), a romantic chamber opera, continued to ignore the modernists. Die Frau ohne Schatten was essentially post-Mahler romanticism. The next eight operas vary from romanticism to classicism.
The opera begins with an affair between the wife of a field marshal (the Marschallin) and the much younger Octavian (a trouser role for a mezzo). Baron Ochs (“ox” in German, a reference to his buffoonish character) is in love with Sophie, so the Marschallin, suggests Octavian as the Baron’s contact with the girl. Octavian complies but falls for Sophie himself. There ensues a long series of comedic complications until it becomes clear that Octavian and Sophie belong together. The Marschallin, wise and gracious to the end, steps aside for the inevitable.
Der Rosenkavalier Suite (1944) was probably put together by the conductor Artur Rodziński with the approval of Strauss, who was living in war-torn Germany and in need of money. The suite is in one movement with very short breaks.
• It begins as the opera does, with horns depicting the lovemaking between the Marschallin and Octavian.
• Act II. Celebratory surging music, then a short fanfare. The famous presentation of the rose in the name of the Baron from Octavian, the rose cavalier (oboe) to Sophie (clarinet).
• A short trumpet outburst is followed by a raucous scene where Ochs’s servants report that Octavian is a poseur who is courting Sophie. Blunt trombone accents end this section.
• A long waltz segment wherein the Baron courts Sophie ends with quiet violin harmonics.
• The opening of Act II, Sophie’s father prepares the cake for the wedding of Ochs and Sophie.
• First a hush, then a trumpet solo. The oboe begins the famous long trio with the Marschallin, Octavian, and Sophie presenting their thoughts. The Marschallin expresses her willingness to let Octavian go. A long surge in the horns is followed by timpani and the rest of the brass. Octavian and Sophie declare their feelings for each other with a simple tune.
• A vigorous waltz from early in Act III. Toward its rustic end, villagers demand payment from a now foolish and broke Ochs.
• The very ending (trumpet calls) is by the arranger.
—Roger Hecht
Roger Hecht plays trombone in the Mercury Orchestra, Lowell House Opera, and Bay Colony Brass (where he is the Operations/Personnel Manager). He is a former member of the Syracuse Symphony, Lake George Opera, New Bedford Symphony, and Cape Ann Symphony. He is a regular reviewer for American Record Guide, contributed to Classical Music: Listener’s Companion, and has written articles on music for the Elgar Society Journal and Positive Feedback magazine. His latest fiction collection, The Audition and Other Stories, includes a novella about a trombonist preparing for and taking a major orchestra audition (English Hill Press, 2013).
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