# Strauss' Metamorphosen



## maestro267

Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen, for 23 solo strings. One of his last works. But it's a work that I struggle to understand. I spotted the direct quotation of Beethoven 3's funeral march near the end (in the middle of the sound texture), but other than that, I still don't really get it. To me, it just seems like a 30-minute ramble, with no clearly defined themes. Usually, pieces clearly state their main theme near the beginning, and then the rest of the piece is focused on developing that theme. I just find it really difficult to get my bearings in Metamorphosen. Maybe if it was scored for a larger orchestra, it would keep my interest with different orchestral colours and textures. But there's only so much you can do with 23 strings.

Of course, none of this is the composer's fault. Hopefully one day I will understand this work a bit better.


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## PetrB

"About the piece."

http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/?fuseaction=composition&composition_id=3161

There ya go


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## Klavierspieler

Interesting. This is one of the only works of his that I really like.


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## senza sordino

Alex Ross in his book Listening to the 20th Century, the Rest is Noise, talks about Metamorphosen. 
http://www.therestisnoise.com/2007/01/chapter-9-death.html

Inspiration from Ovid and Goethe. Transformation may be a negative one. The death march might refer to Hitler or Strauss himself, in his last years. The end of the piece is a kind of Sunrise from Zarathustra in reverse, only darkness remains. This is my summary of Mr Ross

I like the dissonances, the phrases that are unclear, the sonority of strings alone.


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## elgar's ghost

In 1945 Strauss may have thought - or at least hoped - that Germany would recover in the fullness of time but with none of the ideological insanity of the preceding decades. Although the composer himself never clarified the question, the intensity of this work leaves me with the impression that Strauss is not only bitterly lamenting the colossal damage that's been done on all levels (whether to Munich in particular, Germany in general or Europe as a whole) but also regretting that he, as an old man, might not be around for long enough to witness the wounds starting to properly heal.


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## Sid James

maestro267 said:


> Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen, for 23 solo strings. One of his last works. But it's a work that I struggle to understand....To me, it just *seems like a 30-minute ramble*, with no clearly defined themes. Usually, pieces clearly state their main theme near the beginning, and then the rest of the piece is focused on developing that theme. I just find it really difficult to get my bearings in Metamorphosen. ....


I get what you're saying. In a concert I went to hear this work during the 1990's, after the conclusion of Metamorphosen a guy sitting next to me said to his wife something like "that had no point, what was that all about?" This person was a stranger to me, but it sticks in my memory because it gave me insight how this isn't necessarily an "easy" piece. On the same program at that concert where works by Corelli, Bartok and I think Britten, and I didn't hear any complaints about those from the man in question.

Strauss was looking back to a long line of traditions. Schoenberg's Transfigured Night is one of them (written 50 years before), so too Wagner's music, paricularly his late works. The difference is that all 23 string players are soloists in Metamorphosen, its like this contrapuntal web of themes coming together, enmeshing. I've known it for over 20 years, my main response is emotional, and just now I am figuring out how those themes interrelate exactly. Its similar with other composers whose music I am getting back to, such as Franck and D'Indy, who did similar things but earlier. The cyclic or more organic methods of thematic development and form. Sibelius was another like this.

I found this description, written by David Ewin in 1956, to be helfpul and it might be of assistance to you as well:

_This unusual exercise in string sonority was introduced in Zurich by the Collegium Musicum under Paul Sacher on January 25, 1946.

The work, which assigns separate parts for ten violins, five violas, five celli, and three double basses, features solo instruments and groups of strings as well as the entire orchestra. Two theme groups of three subjects each are subjected to considerable development and transformation, with groups of strings used frequently in contrast to each other, aand with lyric passages of solo character punctuating the elaborate texture. The music is touched with tragedy, opening as it does with somber chords (reminiscent of the Funeral March of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony) and concluding with this theme played contrapuntally with the actual one from the Beethoven symphony. It must not be forgotten that when Strauss wrote this music Germany was collapsing in the closing months of the war. Indeed, at the conclusion of his manuscript, Strauss wrote the words "In Memoriam" - in memory, no doubt, of the dying Germany, then being occupied by the Allied forces._


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## Stargazer

It took me a good 4-5 listens before I really started to get into it. The first few times I felt like you - that it had no direction. It got much better with repeated listening!


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## Vaneyes

maestro267 said:


> Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen, for 23 solo strings. One of his last works. But it's a work that I struggle to understand. I spotted the direct quotation of Beethoven 3's funeral march near the end (in the middle of the sound texture), but other than that, I still don't really get it. To me, it just seems like a 30-minute ramble, with no clearly defined themes. Usually, pieces clearly state their main theme near the beginning, and then the rest of the piece is focused on developing that theme. I just find it really difficult to get my bearings in Metamorphosen. Maybe if it was scored for a larger orchestra, it would keep my interest with different orchestral colours and textures. *But there's only so much you can do with 23 strings*.
> 
> Of course, none of this is the composer's fault. Hopefully one day I will understand this work a bit better.


Really? There's been some pretty amazing things done with just 4.


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## maestro267

Vaneyes said:


> Really? There's been some pretty amazing things done with just 4.


I much prefer the sound of a full string orchestra to just a quartet or solo string instruments. I prefer even more the sound of a full orchestra with lots of percussion. That's not to say I don't like string-orchestra pieces. Tallis Fantasia is one of my favourite short pieces.


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## EternalStudent

one of the most brilliant pieces of music ever written. Sadly it is not understood by many, nor will it never be.


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## millionrainbows

maestro267 said:


> Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen, for 23 solo strings. One of his last works. But it's a work that I struggle to understand. I spotted the direct quotation of Beethoven 3's funeral march near the end (in the middle of the sound texture), but other than that, I still don't really get it. To me, it just seems like a 30-minute ramble, with no clearly defined themes. Usually, pieces clearly state their main theme near the beginning, and then the rest of the piece is focused on developing that theme. I just find it really difficult to get my bearings in Metamorphosen. Maybe if it was scored for a larger orchestra, it would keep my interest with different orchestral colours and textures. But there's only so much you can do with 23 strings.
> 
> Of course, none of this is the composer's fault. Hopefully one day I will understand this work a bit better.


Look at it this way: maybe you're not supposed to get your bearings, but be totally wandering and disoriented and lost in grief, an especially appropriate response to the destruction of Germany.

Those interested in this work should look into the Sextet from Capriccio, op.85.


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