Pauline and Franz

As an artist the thirty-year old Richard Strauss was viewed as an enfant terrible but in his private life he longed for a bourgeois existence. The wife he chose to realise this existence guaranteed a regulated but far from peaceful daily routine. Pauline de Ahna, born in Ingolstadt on 4 February 1863 (for reasons of professional advancement she passed herself off as eleven years younger), was the daughter of a general. She was not only a promising singer but also of fiery temperament.
As Strauss proposed to her in the middle of the turbulent rehearsals for Guntram in 1894, the young woman was aware of what she would have to give up for the emerging conductor and warned him: "You, yourself know best how many weaknesses I have, … your parents and Hanna also know my moods; oh well, and now I am supposed to suddenly become the model housewife.” She did become the perfect housewife but Pauline never gave up her moods in the slightest. The couple were married on 10 September 1894 and they spent their honeymoon in Venice.

A son was born on 12 April 1897. The birth put Pauline in mortal danger. Richard Strauss, in Stuttgart on a concert tour, learned of the happy outcome by telegram. A "huge baby”, he was named Franz (after his grandfather) Alexander (after the late friend Ritter), but throughout his life was called Bubi.
In 1906 Pauline ended her professional artistic career as a worldwide renowned lieder singer. It had united her with her husband and it is with a touch of bitter irony that Richard Strauss writes: ‘It is a pity that she turned prematurely to the beautiful calling of an exemplary housewife and mother.” From now on the family, Bauxerl and Bubi, was to be an indispensable support in the busy working life of the conductor and composer.

The anecdotes about Pauline’s forked tongue, her temperamental outbreaks and extravagances are legendary. Alma Mahler recalled (not entirely credibly) in her memoirs the "rage” of the other composer’s wife and Strauss‘ comments about it, "My wife is often extremely harsh, but, you know, I need that.” Yet, the works Strauss devoted to his family life deserve as much attention as the gossip of contemporaries. Ein Heldenleben contains a glowing tribute to his "companion”, the Symphonia domestica portrays daily worries, a domestic argument and a sensual reconciliation in the Strauss household while the opera Intermezzo was inspired by an episode of unfounded jealousy on the part of Pauline. The numerous songs Strauss conceived for the voice of his wife should also be mentioned as must the role of the Färberin in Die Frau ohne Schatten which Hofmannsthal modelled on the moody wife of the composer.
Pauline was deeply devoted to her Richard and his art. She accompanied him to his final resting place in the Munich East Cemetery on 12 September 1949. The Rosenkavalier trio was sung and, "at the climax her arms reached out ecstatically, her hands locked and grasping wildly in the air, as if with her summoned power she wanted to hold something back that was disappearing” (Alois Melichar). Pauline died only a few months later on 13 May 1950.