Death and Transfiguration - Strauss (1864-1949)

In a refreshingly modest statement, Richard Strauss said, “I might not be a first-rate composer but I am a first-rate second-rate composer”. History has shown that he underestimated his worth. However, in an extraordinarily long and eventful life, he had to work through the pain of being reviled and misunderstood to achieve a position where his music is now justifiably seen as a glorious contribution to Western art. The strength of feeling that some of his innovative compositions invoked is perhaps hard to imagine now, when our ears have been regularly assaulted by caterwauling and cacophony, but it was real enough to hurt at the time. A fellow composer Cesar Cui wrote in 1904, “Strauss may be characterised in four words: little talent, much impudence. His method is to overwhelm the listener at once…….His violins scream, his flutes hiss, his trumpets blare, his cymbals crash”. The New York Sun in 1907 was outrageously personal in its analogy, “His music often suggests a man who comes to a social reception unkempt, with hands unwashed, cigar in mouth, hat on, and who sits down and puts his feet on the table. No boor ever violated all the laws of etiquette as Strauss violates all the laws of musical composition”. Little wonder that Strauss, feeling persecuted by critics, answered them in music with the autobiographical Tone Poem “Ein Heldenleben - A Hero’s Life”. Here his adversaries are triumphantly defeated in a battle scene of astonishing power and virtuosity before he depicts his retirement to the countryside with his wife to contemplate his "works of peace” (here he quotes from earlier works).

It was with the loosely constructed musical form of the Tone Poem that Strauss made his first major impact. Turning away from the classical constrictions of tightly regulated structure that characterised his earlier compositions, he followed Wagner in expressing feelings of rich sentiment and romanticism in an almost rhapsodic way. Highly inventive use of the orchestral palette becomes an integral part of the emotional expression. The form of the Tone Poem does not so much tell a detailed story as reveal an imaginative understanding of the deep feelings that we all have but often struggle to express.

The subject of the Tone Poem “Death and Transfiguration” is a theme that concerns all mankind. Strauss’ portrayal is highly personal but universally relevant. Even the staunchest atheist must surely feel a moment of spiritual uplift when, after the struggle of life and death depicted so graphically in the music, the “Transfiguration” theme is so nobly intoned by the woodwind and brass. The first performance of this yet unpublished work was in Munich in 1890 conducted by the composer. When the score was sent to Strauss' publishers, he asked that a poem by Alexander Ritter, written after the score was finished but firmly based on the composer's own plan of the music, should be appended. Here is a précis that might prove helpful to the understanding of the music.

“In a small room, lit only by a candle-end, lies a sick man. He has sunk exhausted into sleep. The soft ticking of the clock on the wall accompanies his slow heartbeat, giving a foreboding of death. A sad smile plays over his face. Is he dreaming of the golden time of childhood? But Death does not long grant sleep. He is cruelly shaken awake and the fight begins afresh. The will to live and the power of Death – what frightening wrestling! Neither forces the victory and all is calm once more. The sick man now sees his life pass before him scene by scene. The morning of childhood innocence, the awakening of youth to the lust for the higher prizes of life. His one high purpose to shape all he saw transfigured into a still more transfigured form. Cold and sneering, the world sets barriers in his way. If he thinks he achieves his goal, a “Halt!” thunders in his ears. Climb the barriers – ever higher and onward go. He desists not from his sacred purpose but seeks, alas, never to find. Then clangs the last stroke of Death’s iron hammer, breaks the earthly body in twain, covers the eye with the night of Death.

“But, from the heavenly spaces, sounds mightily what he yearningly sought for on earth: deliverance from the world, transfiguration of the world.”

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