STRAUSS, RICHARD ), German composer, was born at Munich on June I1, 1864, the son of Franz Strauss, an eminent hornist. To some extent a prodigy, Strauss was something of a pianist at four, a composer at six, and at ten he was already seriously studying music under F. W. Meyer. He had passed through the gymnasium and the university, and his music studies had been thorough. To Billow, and even more to Alexander Ritter, Strauss owed the awakening in his own mind of the interest in the modem development of music.
In 1885 Strauss succeeded Billow as conductor of the Meiningen orchestra, but the appointment was held only for a few months, since in April of this year Strauss resigned his post in order to travel in Italy, and on his return in the early autumn he became 3rd conductor of the Munich Opera under Hermann Levi. Four years later he was installed in Weimar as Hofkapellmeister, but once again he held his post for only a brief period, for in 1894, the year of his marriage to Pauline de Ahna, the eminent singer, he was promoted to be ist conductor at Munich. Between these various appointments and that of Hofkapellmeister in Berlin (1899) Strauss travelled considerably in the Near East and over Europe. He conducted a performance of Elektra, in Beecham's season at Covent Garden in the spring of 191o, and again in 1913 (when his Ariadne auf Naxos was given at His Majesty's), in 1914 (when he conducted his Legend of Joseph at Drury Lane), in 1923 and 1926.
Of the early period of Strauss the composer there is little of importance to be said. Indeed it has often been said that signs of the real Strauss are not to be perceived before his Don Juan (op. 2o) and Macbeth (op. 23). A year only divided Mac beth (1887) from Don Juan (1888). Tod und V erkliirung (1889) is a sensational work. Between it and Till Eulenspiegels lustigen Streiche (1894), Strauss's first opera, Guntram, finds place (first performance, Weimar, 1894), the latter a work that in spite of much reclame for the composer failed to hold a position upon the stage. In Till Eulenspiegel, one of the most brilliantly clever scores ever penned, is to be found a sense of fun that is worthy of note (as of emulation), and it is perhaps worth recording that no more noteworthy example of the rondo form exists in modern music, while its approximate successor, Don Quixote (1897), is an equally outstanding example of the variation. In Don Quixote
(1897) his zenith as a musical realist was reached. In between came another symphonic poem on the most ambitious scale inspired by and named after Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra (1895), which stirred up more temporary strife than any of its predeces sors, if not so much perhaps as was aroused later by the produc tion of Ein Heldenleben (2898), or by the comparatively in genuous Symphonia domestica Up to 1910 Strauss had composed four operas. Of these Gun tram was on frankly Wagnerian lines and had little success, Feuersnot, on the other hand, despite the fact that it is largely in the nature of a satirical skit at the expense of Munich and its citizens, remained sufficiently alive to have merited performance at His Majesty's theatre, London, under Thomas Beecham's direction in July 191o. At Covent Garden in March 1910 Elektra was played to crowded houses and aroused great dis cussion by reason of what was then regarded as its unbridled violence and sensationalism. And later came the not less novel and startling setting of Oscar Wilde's Salome, first produced at Dresden in 19o5 and afterwards performed at Covent Garden.
A still more important work than any of these was the gay and melodious Der Rosenkavalier, which has at the same time such depths of tenderness and romance, which was first brought out at Dresden in 1911 and since then has won friends in all parts of the world. Later came Ariadne auf Naxos, forming part originally of a semi-musical setting of Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme but subsequently re-arranged as an independent work. This was followed after the dramatic ballet The Legend of Joseph, by Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow), first heard at Vienna in 1919 and containing some of the finest music which the composer has written for the stage; to which were subsequently added a "comic play-opera" Inter mezzo (with text by the composer) and a ballet-pantomime Schlagobers (Whipped Cream), both produced at Vienna in 1924; and the operas Helen of Egypt (1928) and Arabella (1933).
In addition to his operas and big orchestral works Strauss has written also many songs, including some of the finest quality. Not a few of the hundred and more of them could be cited indeed in support of his claim to be regarded as a true descendant of the royal line of German song writers.