Richard Strauss' father Franz Joseph Strauss (1822-1905), managed to work his way out of poverty through his musical talent. A member of the Munich Court Opera from 1847, he was considered one of the best French horn players of his time. In 1863 he married Josepha Pschorr (1838-1910) who was a member of the affluent Pschorr brewery family.

The couple moved to the Pschorr residence in Munich where their son Richard Georg Strauss was born on June 11, 1864.  In 1867, their daughter Berta Johanna was born.

The mother was musical with a sensitive nature while the father had the dominant and self-confident personality of a musician. He would raise his son with ethics of hard work as well as frugality, precise musical expertise and a love of the classics.  “His musical creed was the trinity of Mozart (above all) Haydn, and Beethoven.”  However, Franz Joseph Strauss detested the works of Richard Wagner.  Nonetheless he continued to play and completed the complicated horn notes in the premieres of “Tristan”, “Meistersinger” and “Siegfried” among others.
In the Strauss family home, music was a way of life for the entire family.  At the age four, Richard Strauss started piano lessons.  By the age of six, he was already composing his first works “Schneider-polka” and “Weihnachtslied”.  His mother wrote the lyrics for these pieces, as Richard only knew how to write musical notes.
“My mother told me that from a very young age, I used to laugh and smile when hearing the sound of a French horn.  When I heard the sound of a violin, I cried intensely.”
 

Composition Lessons during the High School Years

He entered the Cathedral School at the age of six and his middle school years were completed at the Ludwigs-Gymnasium.  A teacher once recalled about the twelve year old:  “He was a student of wonderful complexity, respectable attitude and good behaviour; active, keen, considerate, sometimes too quick and volatile.”
 
By the age of 18, he had composed some 140 Pieces, of which about 60 were Lieder and 40 were piano works.  Thus originated a Choir “Electra” (1880), based on the tragedy of Sophocles, and a Violin Concerto (Op. 8) in 1882, that was jotted down in a school notebook.
 
At their first joint visit in Vienna in 1883, the violin teacher Benno Walter (and distant uncle twice removed) performed the Concerto with Strauss, with Walter on the violin and Strauss at the piano.
 
During his high school years, Richard also received his first and only lesson in composition and played in the “Wilde Gung’l” orchestra association which was headed by his father.  This orchestra premiered several of his compositions.
 
In 1881, his “official career” began.  His "Festive March for Large Orchestra" was released, and at the same time, Strauss discovered a new world: that of Richard Wagner.
 

In 1883, which marked the year of Wagner’s death, Hans von Bülow, one of the most significant Wagner conductors of the time, took Strauss under his wing.  Under his direction, Strauss wrote not only the “Bläsersuite” op. 4, but also directed it in his public debut as conductor in Munich in 1884.
In the following year, and at the recommendation of Bülow, Strauss became the music director in Meiningen.  This is where he intensified his understanding of Wagner (and also of Liszt and Bruckner).  Strauss’ friendship with the composer and violinist Alexander Ritter (who was the husband of Wagner’s niece Franziska), led to “the key reason for my future development”.
 
21 year old Richard Strauss’ works were already well known at the time that he accepted his appointment as court music director in Meiningen in October 1885.
While Bülow had already shaped the Meiningen Orchestra into a superior sound body, Strauss had other responsibilities.  It was up to him to conduct rehearsals and concerts for the orchestra, to manage the choir association, to give music lessons to Princess Marie von Sachsen-Meiningen, and also to perform as a pianist. (Bülow to Strauss “If you were not better than you are, then you could also just be a pianist”).
Strauss possessed not only invaluable practical knowledge as a musician:  he also excelled at the card game Skat.
 

Role Model Franz Liszt: First Tone Poems

Strauss left Meiningen in April 1886 to return to his hometown of Munich.  It is here that he deepened his repertoire and becomes the third chapel master at the court opera.  However, he mentioned his dislike of Munich stating that “it is not the place in which an enjoyable life of music can prosper”.
 
Between the years of 1885 and 1889, Strauss composed several Lieder and Choral Works as well as “Burlesque” for Piano (premiered by Eugene D’Albert in 1880).  After his travels to Italy, where he found inspiration, Strauss created the first symphonic poems such as the symphonic fantasy “Out of Italy”, as well as “Macbeth” and “Don Juan”.
Thanks to his mentor Alexander Ritter, Strauss was able to transform the basic principle of Franz Liszt’s works in his own way “in which the poetic idea also becomes the main musical element”.  However, music should not in any way become subordinate to the lyrics.  Because “if music does not develop intuitively from within itself, it simply becomes “literary music” …”

From October 1889 until 1894, Strauss was appointed as 2nd Kapellmeister in the Goethe city of Weimar.  It is here that he was faced with great responsibilities as a conductor. (He managed to direct “Tannhäuser”, “Lohengrin” and “Tristan” despite recurring weaknesses in the orchestra).  Shortly after taking office he succeeded in premiering “Don Juan”.  His fame as a composer grew with the premiere of “Death and Transfiguration” (Eduard Hanslick:  “the nature of his talent actually pointed in the direction of musical drama”) and “Macbeth”.  However Strauss’ reputation as a composer grew with his first musical assistance in Bayreuth and his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1890.
 
Strauss recovered from pneumonia at the end of 1892 during his extended travels to Greece and Egypt.  It was also during these travels that he created the concept behind his first Opera.  “My time in Weimar was actually not extremely productive from a composition point of view, with the exception of “Guntram” and a few good Lieder (“Cäcilie”, “Heiliche Aufforderung” (The Lovers’ Pledge). What kept me completely occupied (other than my wife) was the theatre and card games.”
 

The composition of the First Opera and Marriage to Pauline

The two key events of his Weimar period, are linked quite closely together:  Strauss’ first opera, and his marriage to Pauline de Ahna.  In 1887, Richard Strauss met the daughter of a Bavarian General and accepted her as his pupil.  She was talented and pleasant, yet at times quite moody.  In 1889 she followed her Maestro to Weimar where she succeeded in having a remarkable career as a soprano.  She performed roles from Mozart and Wagner, as well as doing a guest performance as Isolde in Bayreuth.  She went on to embody the character of Hänsel in the Weimar premiere from Engelbert Humperdinck’s Fairy Tale Opera “Hänsel und Gretel”.  She also created the main female character of Freihild in Strauss’ first opera “Guntram”.
 
The rehearsals unfortunately did little good to the opera.  The orchestra and the tenors felt overwhelmed by the monumental score.  Pauline who always performed her part perfectly, also cracked under the tense atmosphere and hurled herself into her piano score while the composer conducted.  Despite these challenges, the work led to a love affair which was already flourishing and shortly before the premiere of “Guntram” in Weimar (May 12, 1894) the engagement was announced.  On September 10, 1894 the couple married.  Although “Guntram” only had modest short term success, the marriage lasted a lifetime.

In Weimar, Strauss “did not win over the sympathy of people due to his youthful recklessness and exaggerated behaviour”.  In the same year, he bade farewell to the city and moved to Munich to assume the role of 1st Kapellmeister.  His opera “Guntram” was cancelled after one single performance.  Strauss suffered in his daily responsibilities due to the narrow minded, bureaucratic and unreliable nature of his director Ernst von Possart.
 
Nonetheless, the success of the Munich years (until 1898) lay in his compositions– which in fact were responsible for his international fame.  These included “Till Eulenspiegel”, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” and “Don Quixote”.  Strauss’ fame as a conductor and composer increased largely also due to the multiple tours that he undertook.  Luck was also on his side in his private life.  On the 12th of April 1897, his son Franz was born.
 

Out of Disappointment to Berlin

When the Munich General Music Director Hermann Levi retired in 1896, Possart did not select Strauss as his successor.  Instead he tried to convince Felix von Weingartner to assume the role.  With great disappointment, Strauss turned away yet again from his hometown and the capital. “…Since Weingartner retreated from Berlin, I realised the opportunity (…) and never had a reason to regret this relationship with Berlin”.
 
“I fail to see why I cannot make a symphony about myself.  I find myself just as interesting as Napoleon or Alexander.”  These types of expressions were characteristic of the confidence of this genius paired with a dry and direct Bavarian humour.  A not so easily digestible blend of personalities – but yet so unique to Strauss.

Until the end of his days, Strauss’ father remained a rational and often sceptical advisor to him.  Whether “domestica” was also as monumental as the choir ballade that he conducted in 1903 (text written by Uhland), Strauss’ father wanted to know:  “do you orchestrate this also as loudly as “Taillefer?  There should be silence in the home (domus) !” 
Franz Strauss died in May 1905 never having experienced the opera revolution that his son had triggered in that same year.
 

Fascinated by Oscar Wilde’s Text “Salome”

“…now, after the dance and especially all the finale scenes are all drowned in music, it is not in any way daring to explain that this piece ‘screamed of music’.  Yes indeed.  But it must be seen! ”
 
Strauss immediately recognised how well suited Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” was for opera. He composed the German translation, without even bothering to use a librettist.
 
On December 9th, 1905, Salome was premiered on the stage in Dresden (Strauss’ favourite location for premieres).  It immediately became the epitome of modern opera music – both for the supporters as well as for the critics, to which the censors and the clergy belonged.
 
The ground-breaking work came to Vienna only in 1918 where it became part of the Court Opera program.
 

The Start of Work with Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Strauss found his “poet” in 1906:  the Viennese Hugo von Hofmannsthal.  After this, Strauss’ “Elektra” was adapted for musical theatre.  His “wish to oppose the demonic ecstatic Hellenism of the sixth century from Winkelmann’s Roman imitations and Goethe’s humanity” resulted in a more radical opera than the last one.  “Elektra” premieres in Dresden on January 25, 1909, more rapturous than blazing enthusiasm and rejection combined.
 
The composer would never again venture so far over the boundaries of tonality anymore.
And when he would go back to the classic opera material of the past, then he would do so in the spirit of Winkelmann and Goethe.
 

In 1910, Strauss’ mother Johanna died.  She was a highly sensitive woman who spent the last years of her life under constant medical care.
 

Card Games Night after Night as an Equilibrium to Music

Although Richard Strauss had composed most of “Salome” at the home of his in-laws in Marquartstein, he would now become the master of his own home – which strictly speaking was to be controlled by the “lady of the house”, his wife, Pauline.
Her husband devoted himself to his composition and his Berlin obligations (in 1908 Strauss took over the Berlin Philharmonic Concerts from Weingartner).  His free time was devoted to the game of skat.
 
This “quirk” that the genius had, of spending nights at the card table, was often ridiculed.  However Strauss would explain this as a necessary recreation:  he could hear music everywhere.  Only the cards remained silent…
 
Perhaps the solid social and family relationships contributed to the “experimental” genius and the revolutionist of “Salome” and “Elektra” suddenly making a turnaround.  His friend
Hofmannsthal, started working on “our Figaro”…
 

Great Success with the “Rosenkavalier”

In 1899, Johann Strauss, the “waltz king” passed away.  With the “Rosenkavalier”, the unrelated Bavarian Richard Strauss carried on his legacy. 
Accused by some critics of being an “unholy alliance”, the operetta - which was staged in Vienna under the rule of Maria Theresia – received immense popular success.
 
On January 26, 2011 at the premiere in Dresden, the author duo and “wonder-team” Strauss-Hofmannsthal was complemented by set designer Alfred Roller and Director Max Reinhardt (who saved the production, without once appearing in the program credits).

In June 1914, on his 50th Birthday, Richard Strauss received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford, as well as an honorary citizenship of the city of Munich.
 
At the end of the War, Strauss would resign as general music director of the Berlin Opera House – a position he was appointed to for a short period of time.
 
During the last year of the war, Strauss focused his attention back to the composition of his songs “Lieder”:  He composed “Krämerspiegel” (“Shopkeeper’s Mirror”), with lyrics by Alfred Kerr, despite sharp tongued differences with the music publishers.
 

Fairy Tale Opera “The Woman without a Shadow” – the “problem child”

At the end of 1910, even before the premiere of “Rosenkavalier”, Hofmannsthal wanted to develop the idea of a fairy tale opera.   Strauss finished the composition of “The Woman without a Shadow” in 1916, but the premiere only took place three years later.  “The problem child was completed during the time of heartache and worries brought about by the war.  These gave the score (…) its certain nervous irritable nature…”
 
The heartache in Strauss’ case was justifiable:  he had deposited his entire fortune in the Bank of England – which unfortunately ended up confiscated these funds as they were so called “enemy assets”.  “The Woman without a Shadow” – which Strauss had referred to as “the last romantic opera”- proved to be a sustainable source of income.
 
The premiere of the opera becomes the prelude to the five years that Strauss spent as the artistic director of the Vienna State Opera.

Artistic Director of the Vienna Opera House from 1919

There is a saying:  “fake people are everywhere, but the Viennese are so pleasantly fake”.  Strauss was able to witness this first-hand from December 1919.  Although Strauss was quite familiar with the city already – 1895 as concert conductor and from 1910 often as opera conductor, it would now be the first time that he had real responsibility alongside director Franz Schalk.    Although he was an avid supporter of Strauss’ operas, Schalk’s unconditional devotion to Strauss’ works began to adopt a critical distance after only a few years.

Although there were several crises between the directors of the opera house (that were   made worse by the general economic crisis), the years between 1919 and 1924 still proved to be an artistically affluent time for the Vienna State Opera.

In the middle of the war, an “artistic dream” began to take shape and captured the creative partners Strauss and Hofmannsthal:  they become the artistic directors of the Salzburg Festival along with Max Reinhardt and Alfred Roller.  Their goal with this high profile international event was to regenerate the feeling of self-confidence to a post war run-down Europe and painfully weakened Austria.  The festival was founded in 1920 when only Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s “Jedermann” was put on the program.
 

After Mozart, Strauss becomes the most played Composer

It was the Vienna State Opera Director Richard Strauss who directed the first opera premiere of Mozart’s Don Juan on August 14, 1922.  Between 1922 and 1943, Strauss appeared sixteen times as conductor at the Salzburg Festival   (nine operas and seven orchestral concerts).
 
In the over 80 year history of the Salzburg Festival, the operas of Richard Strass (after Mozart and Verdi) were among those that were the most performed (with “Ariadne of Naxos” taking the lead).  50 years after the Salzburg premiere, “The Love of Danae” was still listed in the program.  The public dress rehearsal in 1944 was attended by Strauss just before the wartime theatre ban took effect.
 

On Tour in the New World

One of the main criticisms of Strauss’ term in office in Vienna were his frequent absences and not fulfilling the duties of his position.  However, his role was secured contractually and helped him to re-generate the fortune he had previously lost.  Moreover it was at the same time good publicity for the Vienna State Opera.  In 1923 Strauss travelled to South America for the first time (in 1923 he would return again with the Vienna Philharmonic).  In the fall of 1921, Strauss travelled to the USA for the second time.
 
However Vienna increasingly became the principle residence for his family:  His son Franz married Alice in 1924 - the daughter of a Jewish industrialist Emanuel von Grab.  Strauss dedicated his “Wedding Prelude” to the young couple.  A further residence was built:  His son and daughter in law moved to the new Strauss Villa in the Jaquingasse after it was completed in 1925.

Strauss returned to the Vienna State opera in 1926/1927 for the premiere of “Intermezzo” for which he was the musical director.   In exchange for the ownership rights of the property on the Jaquingasse, Strauss agreed to conduct 100 times without pay and also to hand over the handwritten manuscript of his newest opera “The Egyptian Helen”.
 

Two Last Operas with Hofmannsthal

In 1923, two new opera projects emerged:  the one is a “graceful, late antique and somewhat colourful comedy” (Hofmannsthal) the other is a “second Rosenkavalier, […] something refined, funny, and sentimental” (Strauss).  “The Egyptian Helen” and “Arabella” would become the last two operas that the artistic duo created.
 
Strauss had distanced himself from the disturbing modern language that characterised his opera “Elektra“.  “The music (of Helen) aspires to have more of a noble Greek personality”.
The piece premiered on June 6, 1928 in Dresden under Fritz Busch.  A few days later it premiered once again at the Vienna State Opera under the musical direction of Strauss himself.

At the end of 1993, the best known German composer took on the presidency of the
State Music Bureau “Reichsmusikkammer” in order to “do good and prevent further catastrophe” – naturally a small portion of political short-sightedness and selfishness played a part as well.  Either way, Strauss fought against the Aryan policies and for a targeted art funding, which made him totally rebuffed by Hitler.
 

First Conflicts with the Nazis

Joseph Goebbels, the National Socialist Reichsminister of Propaganga and Director of the State Cultural Bureau, did not trust Strauss.  The Gestapo began to control Strauss’ letters – one of them being the letter he had written to Stefan Zweig, where he expressed his anger with the Nazi-regime. 
 
Strauss had insisted on including the name of Jewish poet Stefan Zweig in the programme at the premiere of “Silent Woman” on June 24, 1935 in Dresden.  This made him lose his “honorary position” and of course ruined any chances that the opera had of succeeding.
 
An ambiguous period began:  on one hand the attempt to oppose the regime, and on the other hand a feeling of ingratiation (Strauss was appointed to write the Berlin “Olympic Hymns” by the Olympic committee and directed the premiere himself).  However the most troubling of all was his (as the Nazis put it “) Jewish “versippte” (intermarried) family.
 
Zweig recommended Joseph Gregor as poet, who would then re-work the former’s libretto of “Peace Day” (“Friedenstag”).  The premiere would take place in Munich on July 24, 1938.  On October 15, the bucolic tragedy “Daphne” was performed in Dresden, where the libretto was also written by Gregor.
 

Strauss in Vienna under the Protection of Gauleiter Baldur von Schirach

Strauss spent most of the war years in Vienna where he could remain closer to his family (who were under the protection of Gauleiter Baldur von Schirach).  He also celebrated his 75th (1939) and 80th Birthdays there, as Berlin had already issued the order that the “personal travel of our leading men” in the case of the aging composer, had to be stopped.
Goebbels and Strauss could not hide the contempt they had for one another.  However the “minister’s toy boy” as Strauss referred to him, was sitting on the sunnier side.
  
The Last Operas: “The Love of Danae” and “Capriccio”
Alongside occasional compositions such as “Japanese Festival Music” 1941, the last operas “the Love of Danae” and “Capriccio” were also created.  These were composed in a close working relationship with Clemens Krauss who wrote the lyrics and directed the premigere on October 26, 1942.  Strauss writes that “My life’s work comes to an end with “Capriccio”.   In Garmisch he transcribed old scores, with the aim of accumulating objects of value for his grandchildren.

"Artistic Legacy”:
In April 1948, Richard Strauss wrote an elaborate letter which became known by this name, to his close friend Karl Böhm. The letter included the “program for an opera museum to which the cultured world was entitled just as much as to the Pinakothek, the Prado or the Louvre." The octogenarian no longer believed in the renewal of the opera but felt that it’s most important works deserved to be preserved.
 
For the most part, the maestro’s estate was kept at the house in Garmisch.  Strauss’ daughter in law became an indispensable employee.  She continued to maintain the archives until her death in 1991.  Since then, the grandchildren of Strauss have taken over this duty (in particular Richard’s wife Gabriele Strauss-Hotter – the daughter of the great Strauss-interpreter Hans Hotter who had worked on the premieres of “Freedom Day” and “Capriccio”.).  In Garmisch-Partenkirchen, there is also the Richard Strauss Institute as well as Richard Strauss days which are held on an annual basis.
 
Without Strauss’ works, it would be impossible to imagine the repertoires of musical institutes throughout the world. More than 50 years after his death, and given the popularity of his many operas, orchestral pieces and lieder, Strauss remained the most performed classical composer of the 20th century.  
 


Links:
www.richard-strauss-institut.de
www.richard-strauss-festival.de