In the list of tone poets, Richard Strauss (1864), or Richard II is one of the most important. It is strange that he should have the same name as Wagner, for his father Franz Strauss, a skilled horn player, disliked Wagner and his compositions intensely. Richard’s mother was the daughter of a brewer and they all lived in Munich, where the son was born. When he was a little boy, he wrote musical notes before he could write the alphabet, and at six, composed little pieces. By the time he was twenty he had written compositions which put him with Schubert and Mozart, in the ranks of musical prodigies. Until his sixteenth work _Aus Italien_ (_From Italy_) (1886), his first tone poem, he did not depart from the classic forms, although there were a few signs of change in style in a violin sonata which he wrote just before the tone poem. In fact, he was so much against Wagner and his innovations, that no one could have guessed that later he himself would be considered an innovator and would be accused of imitating Wagner. During his youth, after hearing _Siegfried_ he wrote to a friend about the music of Mime: “It would have killed a cat and the horror of musical dissonances would melt rocks into omelettes.” When he met von Bülow, the old master thought little of his talents, but the young man gave him a surprise. For, when Richard went to Meiningen he had never led an orchestra in his life and without one rehearsal, conducted his _Serenade for Strings_, opus 7. Von Bülow realized his great ability, made him assistant conductor, and a year later when he left Meiningen, Strauss took his place. It was about now that Richard met Alexander Ritter the violinist and radical thinker who, he said, changed his life by introducing to him new ideas. He became converted to Wagner. When he heard _Tristan and Isolde_ he was thrilled by it. So, like Proteus, the god who changed his form to suit his adventure, Strauss, the musical Proteus changed his ideas to suit his opinions. Wearied by hard work after writing many classical pieces including a sonata, an overture, the _Festmarsch_, a violin concerto, songs, a horn concerto and other things, he became very ill. He said to a friend that he was ready to die, and then added, “No, before I do, I should love to conduct _Tristan_.” This shows that the young man could change his opinion and become devoted to what he loathed years before, a fine quality which continually brought down upon his head criticism from smaller folk. Yet this Proteus-like quality was a sign of his power for growth. Because he did not gain strength quickly from his illness, he went to Italy and then wrote his first symphonic poem _Aus Italien_ (_From Italy_) in a new and modern vein.