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Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30
Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss was born in Munich on June 11, 1864, and died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on September 8, 1949. He was not related to the Viennese Strauss family of waltz fame, although he composed some impressive waltzes that are incorporated in his larger works. A brilliant conductor and composer, Strauss first came to public attention as a composer because of his sensational symphonic poems composed during the 1880s. At the beginning of the 20th century Strauss turned his attention to the world of opera, shocking the operatic establishment with the high-powered sexuality and violence of Salomé (1905) and Elektra (1909). Strauss later chose somewhat less scandalous subjects for his operas, beginning with his first collaboration with the Austrian poet and playwright, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Der Rosenkavalier (1911). Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus spake Zarathustra), a tone poem “freely after Friedrich Nietzsche,” was composed between February and August 1896 and had its premiere in Frankfurt on November 27 of the same year. The work is orchestrated for piccolo, 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 3 oboes, English horn, clarinet in E-flat, 2 clarinets in B-flat, bass clarinet in B-flat, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns in F and E, 4 trumpets in C and E, 3 trombones, 2 tubas, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, bell on low E, organ, 2 harps, and strings.


Those who have seen Stanley Kubrik’s epic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), are well familiar with unforgettable and formidable opening minute and a half of Strauss’s monumental tone poem. So ingrained has this opening become in our culture, it has long since been imitated and trivialized by popular and commercial abuse. Such has also been the fate of several other monuments of Western art music (Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and the opening of the “Dies irae” of Verdi’s Requiem spring immediately to mind).


While aberrations such as these cannot be avoided, it becomes all too easy to lose sight of the cultural contexts that gave impetus to the creation of these works and that leant them such visceral power. In the case of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, the Nietzschean concept of a higher level of human evolution, the Übermensch (Superman), coming upon the heels of Darwin’s theories of biological evolution, came as an immense shock to audiences of the late nineteenth century. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was the most controversial philologist and philosopher of his time, and his philosophical novel (1883-1891) introduced to the world the parable of the “death of God” and the concept of the future “Superman,” ideas that challenged many of the norms of accepted morality. The principle of an emerging superior individual opened the way to fascist totalitarianism, to be certain, although Nietzsche, had he lived long enough to witness it, would most likely have recoiled in horror at the rise of an Adolf Hitler. Using the personage of the mythical ancient Persian prophet, Zoroaster, Nietzsche fashioned a prophet for his own era: 

For what constitutes the tremendous historical uniqueness of that Persian is just the opposite of this. Zarathustra was the first to consider the fight of good and evil the very wheel in the machinery of things: the transposition of morality into the metaphysical realm, as a force, cause, and end in itself, is his work. . . His doctrine, and his alone, posits truthfulness as the highest virtue; this means the opposite of the cowardice of the "idealist” who flees from reality.

— Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, "Why I Am a Destiny", §3, trans. Walter Kaufmann


Strauss translated many of the essential themes of Nietzsche’s novel into a continuous web of musical episodes that uses the names of several chapters taken from the book:


1. Einleitung, oder Sonnenaufgang (Introduction, or Sunrise) 2. Von den Hinterweltlern (Of Those in Backwaters)

3. Von der großen Sehnsucht (Of the Great Longing)

4. Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften (Of Joys and Passions)

5. Das Grablied (The Song of the Grave)

6. Von der Wissenschaft (Of Science and Learning)

7. Der Genesende (The Convalescent)

8. Das Tanzlied (The Dance Song)

9. Nachtwandlerlied (Song of the Night Wanderer)


In a sense, everything in this forty-minute work derives from its famous opening. Its heritage may be traced back to the opening measures of the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony through the beginning of Richard Wagner’s opera, Das Rheingold, which itself marks the onset of the epic Ring of the Nibelung cycle. In each instance, the composer is tapping the elemental force of what physicists and musicians call the overtone series, whereby the acoustical phenomenon of a fundamental low pitch (C in the case of Strauss’s tone poem) gives rise to the higher overtones or partials contained within that fundamental tone. The result, especially in the case of Also sprach Zarathustra, is overwhelming in its elemental power. In each case, we are aural witnesses to what theologians call creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothingness) i.e., the origin of all things.


From these elemental beginnings, Strauss musically traverses the history of human development, with its passage through simple faith (“Of Those in Backwaters,” with its citation of the chants of the Catholic “Credo” and “Magnificat”), to a yearning for higher knowledge (“Of the Greater Longing”), the discovery of reason (“Of Science and Learning;” realized through a slow, dense, and mathematically fascinating fugue starting in the contrabasses), leading ever onwards toward to joy of new revelations in the form of a joyous Viennese waltz (“The Dance Song”), the end of which is signaled by the sound of a deep bell that marks the onset of the “Song of the Night Wanderer.” The energy of the dance winds down, and after a hint of nostalgia, ends quietly and enigmatically. The central tonality of C Major is placed in opposition to the conflicting center of B Major, leaving the listener to ponder what the future may hold in store.


Whether or not one buys into Nietzsche’s philosophical principles, or even if one remained ignorant of Strauss’s attempt to capture its essential elements in sound, Also sprach Zarathustra remains at its fundamental level an exciting and breathtaking adventure of orchestral spectacle, the creation of, along with his contemporary Gustav Mahler (also deeply influenced by Nietzsche, as clearly evidenced in his Third Symphony), one of the masters of late-nineteenth-century post-romanticism.


Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2016/2026

Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30
Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss was born in Munich on June 11, 1864, and died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on September 8, 1949. He was not related to the Viennese Strauss family of waltz fame, although he composed some impressive waltzes that are incorporated in his larger works. A brilliant conductor and composer, Strauss first came to public attention as a composer because of his sensational symphonic poems composed during the 1880s. At the beginning of the 20th century Strauss turned his attention to the world of opera, shocking the operatic establishment with the high-powered sexuality and violence of Salomé (1905) and Elektra (1909). Strauss later chose somewhat less scandalous subjects for his operas, beginning with his first collaboration with the Austrian poet and playwright, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Der Rosenkavalier (1911). Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus spake Zarathustra), a tone poem “freely after Friedrich Nietzsche,” was composed between February and August 1896 and had its premiere in Frankfurt on November 27 of the same year. The work is orchestrated for piccolo, 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 3 oboes, English horn, clarinet in E-flat, 2 clarinets in B-flat, bass clarinet in B-flat, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns in F and E, 4 trumpets in C and E, 3 trombones, 2 tubas, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, bell on low E, organ, 2 harps, and strings.


Those who have seen Stanley Kubrik’s epic film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), are well familiar with unforgettable and formidable opening minute and a half of Strauss’s monumental tone poem. So ingrained has this opening become in our culture, it has long since been imitated and trivialized by popular and commercial abuse. Such has also been the fate of several other monuments of Western art music (Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and the opening of the “Dies irae” of Verdi’s Requiem spring immediately to mind).


While aberrations such as these cannot be avoided, it becomes all too easy to lose sight of the cultural contexts that gave impetus to the creation of these works and that leant them such visceral power. In the case of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, the Nietzschean concept of a higher level of human evolution, the Übermensch (Superman), coming upon the heels of Darwin’s theories of biological evolution, came as an immense shock to audiences of the late nineteenth century. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was the most controversial philologist and philosopher of his time, and his philosophical novel (1883-1891) introduced to the world the parable of the “death of God” and the concept of the future “Superman,” ideas that challenged many of the norms of accepted morality. The principle of an emerging superior individual opened the way to fascist totalitarianism, to be certain, although Nietzsche, had he lived long enough to witness it, would most likely have recoiled in horror at the rise of an Adolf Hitler. Using the personage of the mythical ancient Persian prophet, Zoroaster, Nietzsche fashioned a prophet for his own era: 

For what constitutes the tremendous historical uniqueness of that Persian is just the opposite of this. Zarathustra was the first to consider the fight of good and evil the very wheel in the machinery of things: the transposition of morality into the metaphysical realm, as a force, cause, and end in itself, is his work. . . His doctrine, and his alone, posits truthfulness as the highest virtue; this means the opposite of the cowardice of the "idealist” who flees from reality.

— Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, "Why I Am a Destiny", §3, trans. Walter Kaufmann


Strauss translated many of the essential themes of Nietzsche’s novel into a continuous web of musical episodes that uses the names of several chapters taken from the book:


1. Einleitung, oder Sonnenaufgang (Introduction, or Sunrise) 2. Von den Hinterweltlern (Of Those in Backwaters)

3. Von der großen Sehnsucht (Of the Great Longing)

4. Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften (Of Joys and Passions)

5. Das Grablied (The Song of the Grave)

6. Von der Wissenschaft (Of Science and Learning)

7. Der Genesende (The Convalescent)

8. Das Tanzlied (The Dance Song)

9. Nachtwandlerlied (Song of the Night Wanderer)


In a sense, everything in this forty-minute work derives from its famous opening. Its heritage may be traced back to the opening measures of the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony through the beginning of Richard Wagner’s opera, Das Rheingold, which itself marks the onset of the epic Ring of the Nibelung cycle. In each instance, the composer is tapping the elemental force of what physicists and musicians call the overtone series, whereby the acoustical phenomenon of a fundamental low pitch (C in the case of Strauss’s tone poem) gives rise to the higher overtones or partials contained within that fundamental tone. The result, especially in the case of Also sprach Zarathustra, is overwhelming in its elemental power. In each case, we are aural witnesses to what theologians call creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothingness) i.e., the origin of all things.


From these elemental beginnings, Strauss musically traverses the history of human development, with its passage through simple faith (“Of Those in Backwaters,” with its citation of the chants of the Catholic “Credo” and “Magnificat”), to a yearning for higher knowledge (“Of the Greater Longing”), the discovery of reason (“Of Science and Learning;” realized through a slow, dense, and mathematically fascinating fugue starting in the contrabasses), leading ever onwards toward to joy of new revelations in the form of a joyous Viennese waltz (“The Dance Song”), the end of which is signaled by the sound of a deep bell that marks the onset of the “Song of the Night Wanderer.” The energy of the dance winds down, and after a hint of nostalgia, ends quietly and enigmatically. The central tonality of C Major is placed in opposition to the conflicting center of B Major, leaving the listener to ponder what the future may hold in store.


Whether or not one buys into Nietzsche’s philosophical principles, or even if one remained ignorant of Strauss’s attempt to capture its essential elements in sound, Also sprach Zarathustra remains at its fundamental level an exciting and breathtaking adventure of orchestral spectacle, the creation of, along with his contemporary Gustav Mahler (also deeply influenced by Nietzsche, as clearly evidenced in his Third Symphony), one of the masters of late-nineteenth-century post-romanticism.


Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2016/2026