Overtones, a book of temperaments : $b Richard Strauss, Parsifal, Verdi, Balzac, Flaubert, Nietzsche, and Turgénieff — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
Overtones, a book of temperaments : $b Richard Strauss, Parsifal, Verdi, Balzac, Flaubert, Nietzsche, and Turgénieff
Nietzsche · en
Guntram, for which Strauss wrote his own book, the first opera of
this composer, is not familiar to Americans. It was never a great
success, despite its earnestness and indisputable depth. Modelled
on Wagnerian lines, it has for a subject the doings of The Fighters
for Love, an order of knights, which, Parsifal-like, in the middle
of the thirteenth century wars for the Cross and Brotherly Love; but
with song and not with sword. Guntram, the hero, is a Fighter for
Love, and his adventures and passion for Freihild form the basis of
the book. The preludes to Acts I and II have been played in this
country. The first is a lovely scheme of orchestration, Wagnerian
in texture, and celebrates the yearning desire which the singers
have consecrated to art and to the Cross. The second prelude is a
brilliant, joyous picture of a Festival of Victory. The form and
development are absolutely free. It is interesting to note, on the
last page of the first prelude, an essential-turn that comes straight
from Götterdämmerung. Strauss employs it with skill as a pregnant
motive. While it is too short for concert performance, the prelude
of the last act is the embodiment of yearning and rich in harmonic
life. The great duo of Guntram and Freihild and Guntram’s farewell
are noble specimens of dramatic writing. Nevertheless the work lacks
big wings.
Two later compositions of Strauss, bearing the opus number 42, are
for Männerchor,—Liebe and Altdeutsches Schlachtlied, both after
Herder. Two sixteen-voiced mixed _choruses a capella_ are also
announced. Enoch Arden, opus 38, is a melodrama for piano and
recitative. It is an interesting experiment, being melodious and
effective. Written for von Possart the German tragedian, the weight
of the work falls upon the reader.
At the seventy-seventh Netherrhenish Music Festival in
Aix-la-Chapelle, June, 1900, Strauss produced two Grössere Gesänge,
opus 44, for low voice and orchestra. Decidedly here the bust is in
the orchestra, the pedestal—! The Rückert and Richard Dehmel are the
poets levied upon—the first represented by his Nächtlichtergang, the
other by a Notturno.
Strauss occasionally indulges in flashes of sly humor. Here is a
footnote he appends to his song opus 31, number 2, Wenn:—
Should any singers think of singing this song, while the nineteenth
century is still in existence, the composer would advise them to
transpose it from this point, a half-tone lower (_i.e._ into E
flat), so that the composition may thus end in the key in which it
began.
Fuersnot, a Singgedicht in one act, book by Ernst von Wolzogen, music
by Richard Strauss, was produced at the Royal Opera House, Dresden,
November 21, 1901. The libretto is founded on a Netherland story,
entitled, The Fire Famine at Oudenaerde. Emil Paur introduced several
excerpts, sonorous, brilliant music, at a Philharmonic concert.
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