Richard Strauss (1864-1949)   
Concerto in D Major for Oboe (1945)

Richard Strauss set off musical earthquakes along his way to becoming one of the world’s great composers.

Richard Strauss was born in Munich on June 11, 1864, to Josepha and Franz Strauss, Germany’s top French horn player. Composing music by age 6, Strauss was soon performing piano recitals and conservative symphonic pieces.

By 18, Strauss had written 140 works. His Suite for Winds was admired by Conductor Hans von von Bülow, who asked Strauss to lead it for the Munich Symphony Orchestra. In 1885, Strauss became the orchestra’s principal conductor.

As a composer, Strauss rocketed to fame in 1888 with his bold and showy opera “Don Juan,” followed in 1905 by his harmonically exciting but scandalous opera “Salome.” His chameleon style and harmonic language were ever changing.

In 1911, Strauss’s comic opera, Der Rosenkavalier, set in mid-18th century Vienna, was more nostalgic than revolutionary. By then, Strauss dominated classical music with works that expanded the definition of post-Romanticism, while shunning modernism. Some considered this regressive, disappointing those who had admired Strauss’s use of atonality, but popular with audiences craving romanticism.

Strauss greatly admired Mozart, and although their musical languages were different—Mozart’s influence was obvious. Strauss dedicated one piece “to the spirit of the divine Mozart” and increasingly devoted himself to the interpretation of Mozart’s music.

By the 1940s, with Hitler in power, Strauss returned to composing 19th-century style works, like “Metamorphosen,” “Four Last Songs,” and an oboe concerto. Strauss hoped that the Nazis might preserve and promote German art and culture. Apolitical, and not aligned with Nazi values (he had a Jewish daughter-in-law and grandchildren), Strauss, nonetheless, accepted an appointment overseeing the development of music under the regime, which he came to regret.

He considered the Nazi “Jew-baiting as a disgrace to German honor, as evidence of incompetence—the basest weapon of untalented, lazy mediocrity against a higher intelligence and greater talent.”

When World War II ended, an America soldier still stationed in Germany heard that Strauss was living nearby (and in poverty). As a musician himself, John de Lancie, paid the composer a visit. Strauss welcomed the soldier, who was also an oboist.

During their chat, de Lancie asked Strauss, “Had he ever thought about writing an oboe concerto?” Strauss responded bluntly, “No.”

Favoring lofty, effusive operas and tone poems, Strauss had written only three concertos (two for horn). Yet, the soldier’s inquiry nagged him, until he began writing Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra, finishing it months later. One of his final works, composed during a period called Strauss’s “Indian summer,” it’s considered the 20th-century’s finest oboe concerto.

The short, seamless, three-movement concerto was a new take on the classical concerto model. Written for a small orchestra like Mozart would have used, it also included elements of the baroque concerto grosso (flute, first clarinet and first bassoon forming the concertino with the soloist). There are thematic links between it and Strauss’s other works, especially in the third movement.

Foremost, the concerto is a devil for the soloist to play, with many prolonged phrases that require the use of circular breathing (simultaneous inhalation and exhalation!)—if it’s to be played as intended. The tonal disposition of the movements is D major, B-flat major, D major. Typical of his later works, the music builds from three main thematic elements and small melodic ideas.

To begin, Allegro moderato, is written in sonata-allegro form with contrasting melodies that are developed and then varied. Highly virtuosic, the manuscript instructed: “Do not hurry.” However, playing at a slower speed, the soloist is challenged by lengthy phrases, and must indeed take urgent breaths, which affects the phrases musically.

The second fluid movement, Andante, referred to as a “Mozartian Andante,” is in classic three-part form. Strauss specified that the Andante should be played at half the tempo of the first movement.

Lastly, Vivace-allegro is a mixture of sonata and rondo. The repetition short-short-short long is followed by variations on the tune. This motif is reminiscent of the rhythm heard in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony’s Fate motif. It also refers to “Metamorphosen” and harkens back to Strauss’s use of the Fate motif in his Piano Sonata, written six decades earlier. The second cadenza is followed by a dance-like allegro that concludes the concerto.

The score’s inscription read: “Oboe Concerto—1945—suggested by an American soldier.” Strauss assigned the rights of the U.S. premiere to de Lancie. But as the Philadelphia Orchestra’s second-chair oboist, de Lancie was prevented (by the first-chair) from performing the premiere. He let a young oboist with the CBS Symphony Orchestra in New York premiere the piece. De Lancie became Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal oboist for 30 years. Only after retiring did he finally perform and record the concerto.

Strauss died in 1949, at 85; his exalted place in music history sealed for eternity.

Jayce Keane, who began her career as a journalist for The Rocky Mountain News, has been working in the orchestra industry and writing about music for 18 years. A longtime resident of California, she now lives in Colorado.