The old Strauss

“one must bear in mind that Verdi is eighty years old, and it is a splendid thing, after having created Il trovatore and Aida, to renew oneself again at the age of eighty, to create a work like Falstaff, which has genius in it.”

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This is the way that Strauss defended about ‘Falstaff’, the opera by G. Verdi that king Willheim ll called ‘detestable thing’ in 1900. Strauss was very respect in Verdi and really understand the different in each era of verdi’s opera. He really have a fond in Verdi because he dedicated his first opera Guntram (1894) to him which he wrote to Verdi “I can find no words to describe the impression made on me by the extraordinary beauty of Falstaff. Consider my dedication as thanks for this reawakening of your genius.”

The last two decades of his life were really troublesome to him and Germany. Because of that his later works were connected to his life and historical events. Before Strauss was famous in his tone poem until change into opera. But, His genius starts to fade as early as 1911 with Der Rosenkavalier, when he left behind the modernist experimentation of Salome and Elektra or it might be in 1929, with the death of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, his librettist for twenty years.

If an artist were to continue working as productively and consistently as Strauss did, he or she would be certainly creative. When Strauss in his mature, he continued to be ‘himself’ though there are many modernism who criticize to his later works that not really ‘creative’ as his earlier work but it might be that because he already know what is his real-self so why change when you already found your place and he’s already mature enough to do what he think is right for him and because of that Salome and Elektra were the works that very avant-garde and really show ‘Strauss’

After Hofmannsthal’s death, it was really crisis to Strauss which that time he became and old man (around sixty-five years old) and also the starting of the National Socialist in Nazi regiment which making the difficulty for him to work but above all of that it doesn’t made Strauss stop to composed though his work which considered ‘decline’ to many critics.

In 1933, Strauss was in really complicated relationship between the National Socialists. He became the president of Reichsmusikkammer. At first he thought that he could do the benefit to German art because of he was a German composers. But, Strauss saw the situation around him in Germany which made him felt uncomfortable. He also got involved with the Nazi though he doesn't wanted to. Strauss wrote a strong letter to his friend attacking the Nazis’ anti-Semitic policies. Unfortunately, the Gestapo intercepted the letter. Strauss was immediately relieved of the Reichsmusikkammer presidency because of that. But he was never a Nazi or an anti-Semite.

Strauss’s family situation also changed dramatically in these years. His Jewish daughter-in-law and grandsons came under threat. Yet Strauss continued to compose though none of these late operatic works were in the standard repertoire nowaday. There is a reason of these works that considered “decline” because, they had not changed and not innovative. He became the ‘old-fashioned composer’.

Around 1940s, Strauss became more isolated and very inward-looking personal. Strauss was very upsetted to the new avant-garde music of modernism he said “I preserve the good that is ours, / hold high the art of our fathers. / Reverently I preserve the old”. In 1943, Strauss’s daughter-in-law, who was a Jewish, and Strauss’s son, Franz, were arrested by Nazis in Vienna and questioned but they were set free by the help of Strauss. In these years Strauss fighted to protect and deal with the regime upon his personal connections with high-ranking Nazis who was his admirers. But in a few months later the Goebbels closed all the theaters. Strauss wrote: “My life’s work is in ruins. I shall never again hear my operas.” This is the one main reason which cause Strauss into depression. The air-raid also destroyed many cultural building. When the Munich National theater was hit, Strauss wrote to a friend: “There is no consolation and, at my age, no hope.” With the theaters closed and his operas not being performed, his personal economic situation worsened so, he sold his old score in order to survive. Also, with his ages, he also have the physical health problem with hearing and eyesight.

He continued to work which he made the great pieces in these years. Strauss went back to composing in old things (two sonatinas for winds & Second Horn Concerto). It’s like he’s revisiting his youthhood. The music is very cheerful and hard to believe that I was composed by the depressed old man. In other words, Strauss continued to be Strauss.

In the last months of the war the Strauss family returned to Garmisch- Partenkirchen to escape the bombing in Vienna. In October 1945 he and his wife left their Garmisch to Switzerland. The elderly couple had no money so, Strauss used his score as security against payment of the bill which mean that they had to be assisted financially by his publisher in order to survive. He still going through his depression even in October 1947, when he got invited to England for a festival of his works, Strauss could only respond to a reporter who asked him what he was going to do next with the phlegmatic “Well, die.”

He released his depression by reading through Goethe’s work but he need to work in order to escaped this ‘depressed situation’. His son, Franz, suggested Strauss to write some song. Strauss chose one poem which called ‘Im Abendrot’ by Joseph von Eichendorff which he said it have something very special to him. He finished it at 1948 when he was eighty-four years old. Afterward, he continued wrote three more songs which called ‘Im Frühlings’, ‘September, and Beim Schlafengehen’, all of this pieces was collected into the song cycle by Strauss’ publisher that we called later ‘Vier letzte Lieder. One of the last wishes of Strauss was that Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962), a norwegian soprano, to sing this piece. Unfortunately, He died eight months before the premiered: Four Last Songs premiered on May 1950 at Royal Robert Hall in London performed by Flagstad the Philharmonia and Wilhelm Furtwängler

Hutcheon, Linda. Four Last Songs: Aging and Creativity in Verdi, Strauss, Messiaen, and Britten (Kindle Locations 940-1069). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.