Richard Strauss

• Born: June 11, 1864, Munich
• Died: September 8, 1949, Garmisch-Partenkirchen

Also sprach Zarathustra (“Thus spake Zarathustra”), Op. 30

• Composed: 1896
• Premiere: November 27, 1896, Frankfurt; Richard Strauss led the Orchestra of the Museum Concerts
• Instrumentation: 3 flutes (incl. piccolo), piccolo, 3 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, 2 tubas, timpani, bass drum, chimes, crash cymbals, glockenspiel, suspended cymbals, triangle, 2 harps, organ, strings
• CSO notable performances: First Performance: November 1926 with Fritz Reiner conducting. Most Recent: May 2017 at the Taft Theatre conducted by Robert Treviño. The Prelude was recorded for the Cincinnati Pops album Time Warp.
• Duration: approx. 35 minutes

Though each of Richard Strauss’ tone poems—Macbeth, Death and Transfiguration, Don Juan, Don Quixote, Till Eulenspiegel, Ein Heldenleben, Also sprach Zarathustra—was inspired by what he called “a poetical idea,” he never described the programmatic elements, plot or “meaning” of these works in any detail, preferring to let critics and scholars contend over such matters. (Of Till Eulenspiegel, he once said, “Let them guess at the musical joke that the Rogue has offered them.”) Strauss approved almost all of these efforts (they were, after all, good publicity, and Strauss—and his very large income—thrived on publicity), so the latter-day reader is left with often contradictory evidence.

Such is the case with Also sprach Zarathustra, which was derived, in some manner at least, from the universal vision of Friedrich Nietzsche’s poem (left unfinished at his removal to a mental hospital in 1889). Strauss provided titles for the nine continuous sections of the piece, but attempts to equate them with specific passages from the poem have been largely unconvincing. Some of the music even goes against the meaning of the text. Of the Inhabitants of the Unseen World deals in Nietzsche’s work with his belief in the folly of religion. Strauss’ analogous music, which was originally titled “Of the Divine” and quotes a Credo from the ancient Catholic liturgy, is marked “with devotion” and creates a prayerful mood. Strauss’ Dance-Song is not some vision of gods on Mount Olympus hymning the beauties of life, but a lilting Viennese waltz. The sensuality of Strauss’ interpretation of Joys and Passions has nothing to do with the self-abnegation professed by the poet. The truth of the matter seems to be that Strauss’ music and Nietzsche’s poem share little more than a title and a few pretentious ideas. Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra is a musical composition and not a philosophical tract.

One possible way to view Also sprach Zarathustra was given by Strauss himself in a letter to his friend Otto Florscheim at the time of the work’s Berlin premiere. “I did not intend to write philosophical music or to portray in music Nietzsche’s great work,” he wrote. “I meant to convey by means of music an idea of the development of the human race from its origin, through the various phases of its development, religious and scientific, up to Nietzsche’s idea of the Superman. The whole symphonic poem is intended as my homage to Nietzsche’s genius, which found its greatest exemplification in his book Thus spake Zarathustra.” These objectives are, in themselves, more than enough to ask of any piece of music. To go further and “attempt to reveal [in sound] a specific philosophical system or detailed philosophical teaching,” wrote George R. Marek in his biography of Strauss, “must end in failure.” Against this background, it seems probable that Nietzsche’s book was little more than the source of generating Strauss’ “poetical idea,” a literary hook upon which to hang a piece of music. In his exhaustive study of the composer, Norman Del Mar brought out the most salient point about Strauss’ magnificent tone poem: “Ultimately it is the sheer quality of the musical material and its organization that counts, while the greater or lesser degree to which it succeeds in the misty philosophizing which conjured it into being is wholly immaterial.”

Though its philosophical associations are tenuous, there has never been any doubt about the expressive powers of this music. (It was the Budapest premiere of Also sprach Zarathustra that convinced the young Béla Bartók to devote his life to composition.) The sections of Strauss’ tone poem mirror several strong emotional states, as indicated by the following program note (authorized but not written by the composer) that appeared at the work’s premiere. “First movement: Sunrise, Man feels the power of God. Andante religioso. But still man longs. He plunges into passion (second movement) and finds no peace. He turns toward science, and tries in vain to solve life’s problems in a fugue (third movement). Then agreeable dance tunes sound and he becomes an individual, and his soul soars upward while the world sinks far below him.”

Three motives unify the work. The first, a unison call by four trumpets based on the most fundamental pitches in the musical spectrum—C-G-C—heard immediately at the outset, is the theme of Nature. The second motive is a sinister theme, perhaps depicting Fate, introduced by the trombones in the section Of Joys and Passions. The third is the conflict between the tonalities of C—representing Nature—and B, which stands for Man’s Aspirations. The unsettled struggle between these two polarities (the technical term is bi-tonality) is most clearly heard at the close of the work, but it occurs throughout.

Though Strauss supplied individual titles for the nine sections of Also sprach Zarathustra, the work is performed continuously. It opens with one of music’s greatest fanfares—a tonal depiction of a radiant sunrise, based on the Nature theme proclaimed by unison trumpets. (The unforgettable image that director Stanley Kubrick supplied for this music in his film 2001: A Space Odyssey could not have been more appropriate.) Von den Hinternweltern (“Of the Inhabitants of the Unseen World”) presents three thematic elements in quick succession: a tortuous figure on tremolo cellos and basses; an upward fragment in pizzicato strings (the theme of Man, in the key of B); and the first notes of the ancient liturgical chant Credo in unum deum (“I believe in one God”) in the muted horns. This brief passage is followed by a chorale-like hymn—marked “with devotion”—for strings divided into 19 parts, organ and horns, which rises to a climax before subsiding.

Von der grossen Sehnsucht (“Of the Great Longing”) returns the theme of Man. An intonation based on the Magnificat is given by the organ; horns again sound the Credo. A wide-ranging motive in the low strings generates a passage of rushing scales and leaps whose impetuosity carries over into the next section, Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften (“Of Joys and Passions”). The music acquires a heroic but stormy character from which the trombones intone the sinister Fate motive, which gains importance as the work unfolds. Das Grablied (“Dirge”), more a nostalgic remembrance of youthful pleasures than a threnody, combines the bounding motive of Man with the rhythmically active themes of the preceding section. The music quiets to lead into Von der Wissenschaft (“Of Science”).

To represent Science, Strauss used that most learned of all musical forms, the fugue, which rumbles up from the depths of the basses into the violas and bassoons, maintaining its lugubrious tone throughout. This carefully calculated theme derives from the open intervals of the Nature motive (C–G–C) and encompasses all 12 notes of the chromatic scale. Quick rhythmic motion returns with the recapitulation of the theme of Man and a sweet melody played by the flutes and violins. A dance-like stanza high in the orchestra is followed by a mysterious presentation of the Nature theme (trumpet) accompanied by chirping calls from the woodwinds based on the Fate theme. (Strauss was adept at transforming a theme into an astonishing number of variants suitable to almost any emotional context.)

Der Genesende (“The Convalescent”), the longest section thus far, utilizes several of the work’s motives. The fugue is re-activated by the trombones before the Fate motive comes to dominate this section. The music reaches a sustained climax followed by complete silence before Man’s theme reappears, timidly at first, but with growing vigor. A sudden hush comes over the music, with only twitterings from woodwinds and a sustained version of the Nature theme introducing the following section, Das Tanzlied (“The Dance-Song”).

The dance turns out to be a fully developed Viennese waltz, accompanied by figuration in the oboes derived from the Nature theme. The theme of Man returns and achieves its grandest expression. Gradually, the Fate theme overtakes the joy of this passage. Nachtwandlerlied (“Night Wanderer’s Song”) begins with a display of power, but slowly the energy drains from the music. Calm, or perhaps mystery, overtakes the music as it reaches its close, with the B major chord of Man fading softly into the highest ether of the orchestra while the insistent C of Nature lingers in the depths of the basses. The conflict is left unresolved.

—Dr. Richard E. Rodda