This year has been the 150th anniversary of the birth of Richard Strauss, one of the leonine figures of 19th-century Romanticism, inventor of the phrase "tone poem" and creator of arguably the greatest series of orchestral works in that genre, with orchestral masterpieces that have passed into legend and have become staple fare in the concert repertoire of every symphony orchestra on the planet: Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Ein Heldenleben, the Alpine Symphony, and so on.
In Scotland we haven't exactly been overwhelmed with 150th birthday performances, though there have been a few good things, including the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland's heroic ascent of the colossal Alpine Symphony (one of my favourites) in the summer and the RSNO strings' performance of Metamorphosen (one of my least favourites) in the autumn. The anniversary did furnish me with my personal Album of the Year in the gorgeous and delectable selection of Strauss's great lieder, performed by the glorious soprano Christiane Karg on Berlin Classics, though the disc is equally unforgettable for the extraordinary pianism of Karg's accompanist, Scots-born pianist Malcolm Martineau, who finds endless subtleties and nuances of colouring and shading throughout the performances.
But this is not a 150th birthday recounting of Strauss's life and career; nor an assessment of his genius and the stream of late Romantic masterpieces he produced in the fields of orchestral music, opera and song. I'm going to be altogether more whimsical (well, it's almost Christmas). I've always been fascinated by the fact that Richard Strauss lived such a very long life. He was born in 1864, and that is a long time ago. But by the time Strauss died, I was three. And that was enough to set me off on my whimsical trail, beginning with a personal note: I have shaken the hand of a man who shook hands with Richard Strauss.
I refer to the Viennese conductor Walter Weller, a former violinist, leader, music director and conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera, as well as a former principal conductor of the RSNO and a man who, for reasons I do not know, does not seem to be invited to Scotland any longer; but that's another story.
Anyway, many years ago, sitting in Walter's Viennese home, enjoying his generous hospitality, I was enthralled as he told me of a visit to the parental home by an old man. This was Richard Strauss. Walter, who was born in 1939, was a young lad, already a learning violinist, following in the footsteps of his father who also played in the Vienna Philharmonic. And what did Richard Strauss do in the Weller home? He wrote a little piece, a duet for Walter and another violin-playing chum, which was an arrangement of the closing duet from his opera Der Rosenkavalier. I was transfixed: Richard Strauss had been in this room.
Walter remembered Strauss as a "very old man". And that very old man had seen entire eras come and go, and not just in his own musical world: the American Civil War, both World Wars and the Russian revolutions. In the music world, when Strauss was born, Berlioz was still alive. Schumann was only eight years dead. Both Liszt and Wagner were very much alive, as was Brahms, who still had 33 years to live and whose first of four symphonies wouldn't be performed for another 12 years. Bizet was alive but still nearly a decade away from writing Carmen. Tchaikovsky was in his mid-twenties, and hadn't yet written any of his six symphonies, or the First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto or Romeo And Juliet.
By the time Strauss died, in 1949, both Tchaikovsky and Brahms had been dead for nigh on 50 years. And before that, Strauss must have at least been aware of the musical revolutions, along with their seminal, radical figureheads, which had swept music into the 20th century: The Rite Of Spring was already 36 years old by 1949. Berg and Bartok had been dead for four years. Prokofiev had four years to live, Arnold Schoenberg just two. Sibelius, of course, lived well into his nineties, but by 1949 it was already 25 years since he had written his seventh and last symphony.
And meanwhile the musical world had erupted. Jazz had been born and had grown up: bop was rife. Bill Haley was 24, with Rock Around The Clock and The Blackboard Jungle only six years away. Elvis was 14, with Heartbreak Hotel and world influence six years around the corner. Benjamin Britten already had three operas, including Peter Grimes, under his belt. And John Lennon was nine. Suddenly the world seems smaller and the distant past a little closer. Richard Strauss lived through it all.
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