Richard Strauss

Born: June 11, 1864, Munich, Germany
Died: September 9, 1949, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Ein Heldenleben (“A Hero’s Life”), Op. 40

• Composed: 1898
  
• Premiere: March 3, 1899 in Frankfurt, the composer conducting
  
• Instrumentation: 3 flutes, piccolo, 4 oboes (incl. English horn), 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 8 horns, 5 trumpets, 3 trombones, tenor tuba, tuba, timpani, bass drum, crash cymbals, field drum, snare drum, suspended cymbals, tam-tam, triangle, 2 harps, strings
• CSO notable performances: First: at the 1912 May Festival, Ernst Kunwald conducting. First CSO: April 1927, Fritz Reiner conducting. Most Recent: April 2011, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducting. Notable: March 1999 at Carnegie Hall, Jesús López Cobos conducting, and February 1994, Iván Fischer conducting.
• Duration: approx. 44 minutes

“No man is perhaps a hero to his valet; but Strauss is evidently a hero to himself.” The autobiographical nature of Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben did not slip past critic Philip Hale, nor has it been less than obvious to most anyone else. Literary autobiography and self-portraiture (à la Rembrandt) had been acceptable artistic genres for centuries. So why not music? So why not Strauss?

In 1898, the year of Ein Heldenleben, Strauss was the most talked-about composer in the world. This work was the seventh of his orchestral tone poems, each new arrival greeted with a flurry of international interest by press and public alike. They (Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, Also sprach Zarathustra, et al.) were sensational works that carried programmatic music and the art of orchestration to heights no one else, except Berlioz, had conceived. Strauss was also one of the pre-eminent conductors of the day, and at the time he composed Ein Heldenleben he was principal conductor of the Berlin Court Opera and past music director of the Berlin Philharmonic. Strauss parlayed all these activities into an immense income, and it is almost certain that he was the wealthiest composer of concert music ever. With all this, he had a right to be proud.

When Strauss was casting about early in 1898 for a subject for a new tone poem, he first thought of  writing a companion piece to his earlier Don Quixote, a fine work full of windmills and bleating sheep based on Cervantes’ fabled character. Instead of limiting the specific musical allusions only to Quixote, however, the new work would be a general overview of the heroic spirit. Strauss painted six aspects of this spirit in Ein Heldenleben. The first three sections portray the participating characters: “The Hero” (“his pride, emotional nature, iron will, richness of imagination, inflexible and well-directed determination supplant low-spirited and sullen obstinacy,” noted the modest composer); “His Adversaries” (Strauss said nothing about them—the cackling, strident music speaks for itself); and “His Beloved” (“It’s my wife I wanted to show. She is very complex, very feminine, a little perverse, a little coquettish, never like herself, every minute different from how she had been a moment before.” The violin solo depicting this intriguing creature, incidentally, is one of the most demanding in the entire orchestral literature.). The fourth section, in which the hero girds his loins to do battle against his enemies, was considered the height of modernity when it was new. Section five is an ingenious review of at least 30 snippets selected by Strauss from nine of his earlier works and whipped together in a skillful and satisfying contrapuntal mélange. The closing section tells of the hero’s withdrawal from the earthly struggles to reach “perfection in contemplative contentment,” in the obscure words of the composer. The work concludes with an autumnal, perhaps funereal, stillness whose last gesture encompasses the elemental motive that opens Also sprach Zarathustra (most famous as the theme from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey) in the low notes of the trumpets.

For the appearance of Strauss as guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic during the 1921-1922 season, Lawrence Gilman prepared the following synopsis of Ein Heldenleben, to which the composer gave his approval:

“1. The Hero. We hear first the chief theme of the Hero, the valorous opening subject for the low strings and horns, joined later by the violins. There are subsidiary themes, picturing different aspects of the Hero’s nature—his pride, depth of feeling, inflexibility, sensitiveness, imagination.

“2. The Hero’s Adversaries. Herein are pictured the Hero’s detractors—an envious and malicious crew, filled with all uncharitableness. Flute, oboe, piccolo, English horn, clarinets utter shrill and snarling phrases. There is also a malignly ponderous phrase, in fifths, for tenor and bass tubas, intended to picture the malevolence of the dull-witted among the foe. The theme of the Hero appears in sad and meditative guise. But his dauntless courage soon reasserts itself, and the mocking hordes are put to rout.

“3. The Hero’s Companion. A solo violin introduces the Hero’s Beloved. She reveals herself at the start as capricious, an inconsequent trifler, an elaborate coquette. The directions printed above the violin part in the score—‘flippantly,’ ‘playfully,’ ‘insolently,’ ‘sedately,’ ‘soothingly,’ ‘angrily,’ ‘scoldingly,’ et cetera—suggest the changing aspects of the emotional scene. After a grave and earnest phrase heard again and again, the orchestra breaks into a love song of heroic sweep and passion. As the ecstasy subsides, the mocking voices of the foe are heard remotely.

“4. The Hero’s Battlefield. But suddenly the call to arms is heard, and it may not be ignored. Distant fanfares (trumpets behind the scenes) summon the Hero to the conflict. The orchestra becomes a battlefield; the music ‘evokes the picture of countless and waging hosts, of forests of waving spears and clashing blades,’ wrote James Huneker of this section. Through the dust and uproar we are reminded of the inspiration of the Beloved, which sustains and heartens the champion, whose theme contests for supremacy with that of his adversaries. A triumphant orchestral outburst proclaims at last his victory.

“5. The Hero’s Works of Peace. Now begins a celebration of the Hero’s victories of peace, suggesting his spiritual evolution and achievements. We hear quotations of themes from Strauss’ earlier works: reminiscences of Death and Transfiguration, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel, Macbeth, Also sprach Zarathustra, the music-drama Guntram, and the exquisite song Traum durch die Dämmerung (‘Dream at Twilight’).

“6. The Hero’s Retreat from the World, and Fulfillment. The tubas mutter the uncouth and sinister phrase which voices the dull contempt of the benighted adversaries. Furiously, the Hero rebels, and the orchestra rages. But his anger subsides. Over a persistent tapping of the kettledrum, the English horn sings a pastoral version of his theme. An agitated memory of storm and strife again disturbs his mood. But the solo violin reminds him of the consoling presence of the Beloved One. Peace descends upon the spirit of the Hero. The finale, majestic and serene, recalls the words of the luminous Shankara: ‘For the circling world is like a dream, crowded with desires and hates; in its own time it shines as real, but on awakening it becomes unreal.’”

—Dr. Richard E. Rodda