# I am the last mountain of a large mountain range. After me come the flatlands.



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

"...seeing himself as last in line after the German greats Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, Strauss once said, '*I am the last mountain of a large mountain range. After me come the flatlands*')." - Richard Strauss Source

Do you agree with Richard Strauss' self-assessment? Was he the last of the great German composer lineage?


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

Hindemith and Stockhausen are definitely up there. I`d personally add Reger, Henze and Rihm to the range as well.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Yup, I agree. He was the last.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

I've never looked at it from a national perspective. I prefer to think about who were the last Wagnerians with creative power. Richard Strauss, Arnold Schönberg, Erich Korngold, Bernard Herrmann, Oliver Messiaen. In that case the German-speaking line died with Korngold in 1957, the American episode in 1975, and the French one in 1992, around the same time as the last vestiges of European empires.

If we count the end as coming with the last premiered works of any significance, then Wagnerian waves all but dissipated by the 1960s.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Couchie said:


> "...seeing himself as last in line after the German greats Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, Strauss once said, '*I am the last mountain of a large mountain range. After me come the flatlands*')." - Richard Strauss Source
> 
> Do you agree with Richard Strauss' self-assessment? Was he the last of the great German composer lineage?


This from the man who said _"I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer."_??_ _


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Becca said:


> This from the man who said _"I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer."_??__


Yes. He was saying that composers _after him_ wouldn't even be _second-class first-rate. _


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Couchie said:


> Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Strauss
> Do you agree with Richard Strauss' self-assessment?


You just like the fact that Brahms is missing from the list.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> This from the man who said _"I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer."_??__


I was thinking of that too. But of course there are first-class second-rate mountains.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm not sure I'd call Strauss the last great German composer, but his Four Last Songs are the last German music that really moves me. On the whole I find his work very variable in quality. If Bach, Beethoven, Wagner and Brahms are mountains, I'll have to call Strauss a high hill.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Becca said:


> This from the man who said _"I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer."_??__


Precisely! 

About Sibelius he said: "I might (technically) know more but Sibelius is the greater composer."


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I'm not sure I'd call Strauss the last great German composer, but his Four Last Songs are the last German music that really moves me. On the whole I find his work very variable in quality. If Bach, Beethoven, Wagner and Brahms are mountains, I'll have to call Strauss a high hill.


Agree about the four last songs. Of all the great masterpieces the romantic era produced, the Four Last Songs is the only one I frequently don't listen to because of how much it moves me.


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## Georgieva (7 mo ago)

I'm sure there's an _element of truth_ in that. I definitely could say that there is a huge gap between _"Superman"_ and _"Superhuman"._

Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra / Gustavo Dudamel, conductor · Berliner Philharmoniker/
Link: Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra / Dudamel · Berliner Philharmoniker - YouTube


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Couchie said:


> "...seeing himself as last in line after the German greats Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, Strauss once said, '*I am the last mountain of a large mountain range. After me come the flatlands*')." - Richard Strauss Source
> 
> Do you agree with Richard Strauss' self-assessment? Was he the last of the great German composer lineage?


Um, yeah, well, that's a pretty narcissistic thing to say.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

This kind of narcissism is quite common and Strauss was probably second only to Wagner in this department. But Schoenberg also supposedly said that his 12 tone method was going to ensure the superiority of German music for a long time.

I don't think it's true in instrumental music but I'd say that in opera Strauss (and Puccini but he died much earlier) were in some ways the "last ones" (had Korngold stuck with opera he might have been another one but it would not have extended the general development of the genre by much) without restriction to Germany or German language, it's just the trajectory of the genre overall. That doesn't mean that there are no later great operas (or even that post-1920 Strauss is as great as earlier) but there are very few of them, even fewer have become standard repertoire and they don't form a body of work like with Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, Strauss.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

One could say that Strauss was the last mountain in the 19th-century mountain range. - After all, he couldn't know thar some Wolfgang Rihm follows, who continued the 19th century composing.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Philidor said:


> One could say that Strauss was the last mountain in the 19th-century mountain range. - After all, he couldn't know thar some Wolfgang Rihm follows, who continued the 19th century composing.


Wolfgang Rihm is nowhere near the same league of acclaim as Richard Strauss is, though. Can you suggest pieces that clearly place him above his contemporaries and as a mountain in the history of German music?


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

No composer born after ca. 1930 (unless film, musical, popular) is remotely in the same league of acclaim as Strauss or Puccini or Stravinsky. Contemporary classical music became a niche interest after the mid-20th century and never recovered, despite some comparably popular pieces, especially by minimalists.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> Wolfgang Rihm is nowhere near the same league of acclaim as Richard Strauss is, though. Can you suggest pieces that clearly place him above his contemporaries and as a mountain in the history of German music?


It was a joke. The joke is that Wolfgang Rihm is a fully romantic composer, if you are looking through the modern surface of his music. (Just listen to his third string quartet "Im Innersten", already the title is as romantic as it can be.)


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

From my perspective, the first German to write the type of music that I like was Bernd Alois Zimmermann.
The Austrian whose music I like most is Friedrich Cerha.

I'm not into mountain climbing, but I love to watch 1957's "The Abominable Snowman".


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Kreisler jr said:


> No composer born after ca. 1930 (unless film, musical, popular) is remotely in the same league of acclaim as Strauss or Puccini or Stravinsky.


I am sincerly curious which composers born after ca. 1930 do you view as being in the same league [of acclaim]... as the three aforementioned...


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

There is no doubt to me that the most beautiful music has come from Germany and Austria, and Richard Strauss is the last of the heavy hitters. Hindemith, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern were also great but not on Strauss' level. People say, well, who is going to be the next Beethoven, the next Shakespeare, the next Rembrandt, the next Sinatra, Elvis, Beatles, or Michael Jackson. I don't think that is ever going to happen because the best has already been done. There will be composers, writers, artists, etc, who can be interesting, and enjoyable, but it's hard to original. A talented enough craftsman can compose like Beethoven or paint like Rembrandt or sing like Sinatra or Elvis; but it won't be original. The minimalist movement for example has spawned many interesting and enjoyable works, and Philip Glass, who was once considered by the snobs to be a passing fad and gimmick, is now rightly deserving to one of our "Grand Masters of American Music", but can Glass, or Cage, or Berio, or Boulez, or anyone who started composing after World War II really be compared to the likes of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, etc? Art is all about finding the truth and now we live in an age where the truth will have to be found in the art of living and fining purpose in a weary world, and each of us will need to find it in a diferent way. In a way Strauss' career exemplifies what I'm talking about because by the end of the 19th century when he composed _Zarathustra_, _Heldenlieben_, and so forth, his music was idendified as "The Music of the Future" with it's jagged edges, dissonances, and noisy outbursts; but then along came Stravinsky and Schoenberg who would be the real masters that ushered in the Modern Age. Strauss' _Four Last Songs_ which goes back to the High Romantic times of Schubert and Schumann was one of his final works, composed after World War II and even after Boulez and Messiean had hit the music scene. Despite all the "Futuristic" element that people read into his tone poems and operas such as _Salome_ and _Elektra; _because ultimately Strauss looked backward and not forward. He left no followers or disciples like Stravinsky and Schoenberg did; and so Strauss was "last". Instead of bringing something new he pushed what was old as far as it could go.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I live on the last mountain between two branches of a river. The ones upstream get progressively higher. The last mountain in a range is often less lofty than the others. Strauss's statement could therefore be read as self-deprecating rather than aggrandizing, and so, entirely consistent with his self-proclaimed first-class second-rate status.


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Couchie said:


> "...seeing himself as last in line after the German greats Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, Strauss once said, '*I am the last mountain of a large mountain range. After me come the flatlands*')."


I would describe him as a fairly lofty 'munro' perhaps not a large mountain.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> Can you suggest pieces that clearly place him above his contemporaries and as a mountain in the history of German music?



Clamatio
Tutuguri
Jakob Lenz
Die Hamletmaschine
Oedipus
Duomonolog
Die Eroberung von Mexico
Vers une symphonie-fleuve
Seraphin
Jagden und Formen
Gebild
Das Gehege
Deus Passus
Proserpina
Drei Frauen
Mnemosyn
Dionysos
Epilog
Et Lux

,


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> No composer born after ca. 1930 (unless film, musical, popular) is remotely in the same league of acclaim as Strauss or Puccini or Stravinsky. Contemporary classical music became a niche interest after the mid-20th century and never recovered, despite some comparably popular pieces, especially by minimalists.


Pardon me, but the same could be said of practically any nation. 

No _[insert nationality HERE]_ composer born after ca. 1930 (unless film, musical, popular) is remotely in the same league of acclaim as _[name a few pre-1930 composers from that country]_.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> No composer born after ca. 1930 (unless film, musical, popular) is remotely in the same league of acclaim as Strauss or Puccini or Stravinsky. Contemporary classical music became a niche interest after the mid-20th century and never recovered, despite some comparably popular pieces, especially by minimalists.


Aporia!

But constructive aporia because it does sound plausible that the height of Straus’s mountain is about the same as the height of Glass’s.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Richard Strauss was born in 1864 so it is not unexpected that his roots were in the traditional German Romantic tradition. But he died in the mid 20th century and it is interesting to me that while some of his works indicate the influence of the early 20th century, one of his signature works (Four Last Songs) returned to his roots. At the very least, he was the last gasp of the CP era.

A little known Strauss work these days is his Violin Concerto written circa 1881 and first performed with orchestra in 1890. It actually was also performed at the Proms in 1912. The Adagio is (IMO) fairly substantial for a 17 year old:


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Richard Strauss is one of he few composers from earlier than the late 20's that I still like.

But, for my tastes,  Hans Werner Henze, Stefan Wolpe, and Helmut Lachenmann, are better than Strauss.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Well, Paul Hindemith outlived Strauss by 14 years so I guess he wasn't wholly right. Given some of Richard Strauss's somewhat wry comments on music and musicians, I wonder whether he was being serious?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

pianozach said:


> Um, yeah, well, that's a pretty narcissistic thing to say.


Well Strauss was probably the foremost world-famous composer at the time he said that. He even felt comfortable telling the Nazis where to put it. Schopenhauer once said something to the effect of, if you've got the goods, then humility is merely hypocrisy intended to please fools.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> No composer born after ca. 1930 (unless film, musical, popular)


The famous composers of the CP wrote vast amounts of "theatre music" and "popular music", a lot of which are known to, and listened to today by connoissieur circles.



> Contemporary classical music became a niche interest after the mid-20th century and never recovered


Maybe that's because it's generally not as "easy listening" as the music of the famous composers of the CP. For example, Schoenberg was less a crowd-pleaser than them.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

Strauss is the 20th century's most 19th century composer.

(And Beethoven's "Große Fuge" op. 133 is the 19th century's most 20th century music, but that's another story ...)


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Philidor said:


> *Strauss is the 20th century's most 19th century composer.*
> 
> (And Beethoven's "Große Fuge" op. 133 is the 19th century's most 20th century music, but that's another story ...)


Unless you're only counting German composers, how about Rachmaninoff? Compare his Third Concerto to _Elektra_.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> Unless you're only counting German composers, how about Rachmaninoff? Compare his Third Concerto to _Elektra_.


Better to be late to a party than early to a funeral.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Mountain goat to the Couchie


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Prodromides said:


> Mountain goat to the Couchie


While I am amused, and aware of the context of my username being confused with what is sometimes referred to as the "cooch", in reality its etymology is far nobler and innocent.

I began my online discourse (as a wee lad) under the pseudonym "Couch Potato". This was later shortened to "Couch P". At some point it became blurred into simply "Couchie", which it remains to this day. Sorry to disappoint, there is no connection to female genitalia.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I voted for the second option. There where other great composers to come after, but probably not for long. Others who died slightly later, like Hindemith and Schoenberg, definitely came out of the same sort of lineage going back to Bach. At the same time, given all his achievements and considerable body of work, its difficult to think of anyone else quite like Strauss during the period.

In saying this, I'm buying into the grand narrative interpretation of music history. I don't think its the only way to interpret history, nor is it really useful or necessary to try and fit what happened later (with the emergence of postmodernism) into these sorts of imperatives.

In the past, there was much debate over whether Strauss was a the dawn of something new or a sunset of what had been. Perhaps the best way to see Strauss is as a transitional figure. He was like a mentor and inspiration to so many other composers. He consolidated what had been done with the tone poem and programmatic symphony, brought opera to the edge of tonality and also contributed to emerging trends later like Neo-Classicism.

Even though he was deeply interested in philosophy, psychology and history, there's a strong human element to his music, which is often earthy and even vulgar. He can also be emotionally penetrating given half a chance. In terms of this combination of intellect and reality, its probably not a bad thing if he's a mountain that gives way to the flatlands. I'm reminded of the Chinese saying about the emperor, who is too high up in the mountains and therefore remote from the people.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Couchie said:


> Better to be late to a party than early to a funeral.


This very much depends on which party and which funeral.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

EdwardBast said:


> how about Rachmaninoff?


Agreed. However, the important works of Rachmaninow emerged 1936 or earlier (with the exception of the Symphonic Dances). And all well-known works before 1920. So I find it difficult to call him a 20th century composer. He is a good example for an in-between-composer, as Mahler.


EdwardBast said:


> Compare his Third Concerto to _Elektra_.


Elektra is a good example to show Strauss the modernist. Do have have another one to underline this estimation?  

I also say that for instrumentation he was a modernist. But the spirit behind his music is 19th century. Imho, course.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Philidor said:


> Agreed. However, the important works of Rachmaninow emerged 1936 or earlier (with the exception of the Symphonic Dances). And all well-known works before 1920. So I find it difficult to call him a 20th century composer. He is a good example for an in-between-composer, as Mahler.
> 
> _Elektra_ is a good example to show Strauss the modernist. Do have have another one to underline this estimation?
> 
> I also say that for instrumentation he was a modernist. But the spirit behind his music is 19th century. Imho, course.


_Elektra_ is no more “modern” than music by Wagner, Busoni or Reger. That’s to say, it’s reactionary chromaticism.

In a way I think _Symphonia Domestica_ is the most modern thing Strauss wrote, because it is a glorification of banal ordinary life, like Joyce and DH Lawrence in _Sons and Lovers_. Also the opera _Intermezzo_ - with its famous card game.


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## VoiceFromTheEther (Aug 6, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Elektra is no more “modern” than music by Wagner, Busoni or Reger. That’s to say, it’s reactionary chromaticism.
> 
> In a way I think Symphonia Domestica is the most modern thing Strauss wrote, because it is a glorification of the banal, like Joyce.


1. how can chromaticism be reactionary?
2. why does a glorification of banality qualify art as modern?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> 1. how can chromaticism be reactionary?
> 2. why does a glorification of banality qualify art as modern?


Well he wrote Elektra in the first decade of the 20th century. The chromatic thing had been going for years! There was nothing new about it. Schoenberg was already doing fresh things by then.

The elevation of ordinary life just seems to me to be a major aspect of early 20th century modernity. I mean, in _Symphonia Domestica _there’s music representing bathing the baby - it’s a bit like Joyce writing very poetic prose describing Bloom having a pee or kissing his wife’s bottom, or Lawrence describing orgasms (in _Lady Chatterly_, not _Sons and Lovers_.) And _Intermezzo_ is about an ordinary domestic row between husband and wife. Contrast this with the sort of subject matter Wagner and Verdi chose.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> _Elektra_ is no more “modern” than music by Wagner, Busoni or Reger. That’s to say, it’s reactionary chromaticism.


Chromaticism? I wouldn't call the chromaticism in Elektra "modern". See Gesualdo.

Modern is the bitonality that can be found in places, e. g. with the "Elektra chord".


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I've always been a huge fan of the music of Richard Strauss , and. as far as I am concerned, he's actually one of the most UNDERRATED composers of all time . Underrated in the sense that so many critics and composers have been so dismissive of him and of his less frequently performed later operas among other works . I don't know if you have read the biography by the late critic Georg Marek called "Richard Strauss: Life of a non-hero ". This is typical of. those dismissive critics . Marek admires basically only a handful of works by Strauss, basically the best known ones , but even here he has many reservations . 
But he is unfairly dismissive of. all of the Strauss operas after Ariadne auf Naxos , and even here he finds the triumphant ending much too "bombastic and turgid " or words to that effect, allegedly spoiling the opera . This biography is insufferably snooty and condescending toward a truly great composer . 
And having had the opportunity to become more familiar with his less frequently performed operas in recent years through. recordings on CD and on DVDs , I. have grown to love the music of Strauss even more . For example his second opera Feuersnot " , and "Intermezzo ", "Die Agyptische Helena, ", "Friedenstag ", and. "Die Liebe Der Danae ". 
I had already heard. "Daphne", his first opera "Guntram ", "Die Schweigsame Frau" on. LP long before , 
And I still love the moderately well known operas "Arabella" and his. last opera "Capriccio ". "Salome", "Elektra " , Der Rosenkavalier". Ariadne , and Die Frau Ohne Schatten. I had already become enamored of. since I was a teenager , back in the stone age . 
I would not dismiss any of the Strauss operas as. worthless .or failures . I've gotten to know the ballet score " Josephslegende " in recent years on CD and I live every lush, decadent minute of 
it . Among the symphonic poems, I've always adored. the "Symphonia Domestica " and the Alpine Symphony . I haven't heard the complete ballet "Schlagobers " ( whipped cream in German, ), but the parts I've heard are absolutely charming and so witty . 
The early orchestral works "Macbeth " and "Aus Italien " are also very underrated and deserve to be performed more often . I have yet to hear a work by Strauss I didn't like !
But he died in 1949 at the age of 85 , and did not live long enough to hear music by other important German and Austrian composers such as Henze, Stockhausen and others , so I think it's premature to say Strauss is the "last great German composer ".


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> No composer born after ca. 1930 (unless film, musical, popular) is remotely in the same league of acclaim as Strauss or Puccini or Stravinsky. Contemporary classical music became a niche interest after the mid-20th century and never recovered, despite some comparably popular pieces, especially by minimalists.





pianozach said:


> Pardon me, but the same could be said of practically any nation.
> 
> No _[insert nationality HERE]_ composer born after ca. 1930 (unless film, musical, popular) is remotely in the same league of acclaim as _[name a few pre-1930 composers from that country]_.


These both seem an awful lot like subjective opinions, being stated as if they are an objective fact.

I know these opinions are held by the majority of TC members, and classical fans in general, they are still opinion.

But as one who likes very little classical music from pre-1930, with most of my favorite music coming from post 1940 up through the current era, I can unequivocally state, that I disagree with your subjective opinion.

And as far as classical music becoming a niche musical interest, that was probably destined to happen anyway, with the advent of the popularity of jazz, rock, R&B, show music, etc. And other than empathizing with struggling classical composers trying to make a living from their music, I couldn't care less that classical music is now a niche interest.

I have a hard enough time keeping up with all the classical music from post war to the current era.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

superhorn said:


> I've always been a huge fan of the music of Richard Strauss , and. as far as I am concerned, he's actually one of the most UNDERRATED composers of all time . Underrated in the sense that so many critics and composers have been so dismissive of him and of his less frequently performed later operas among other works . I don't know if you have read the biography by the late critic Georg Marek called "Richard Strauss: Life of a non-hero ". This is typical of. those dismissive critics . Marek admires basically only a handful of works by Strauss, basically the best known ones , but even here he has many reservations .
> But he is unfairly dismissive of. all of the Strauss operas after Ariadne auf Naxos , and even here he finds the triumphant ending much too "bombastic and turgid " or words to that effect, allegedly spoiling the opera . This biography is insufferably snooty and condescending toward a truly great composer .
> And having had the opportunity to become more familiar with his less frequently performed operas in recent years through. recordings on CD and on DVDs , I. have grown to love the music of Strauss even more . For example his second opera Feuersnot " , and "Intermezzo ", "Die Agyptische Helena, ", "Friedenstag ", and. "Die Liebe Der Danae ".
> I had already heard. "Daphne", his first opera "Guntram ", "Die Schweigsame Frau" on. LP long before ,
> ...


Rosenkavelier, apart maybe for the start of Act III, seems to me a perfect opera. Ariadne, Salome and Electra seem totally faultless to me. Capriccio is a great favourite - it has the feeling of a fitting final opera, like Falstaff for Verdi. Frau ohne schatten can be very exciting in the opera house. However I didn’t enjoy Arabella (despite naming myself Mandryka!) and I walked out of a concert performance of Die Agyptische Helena, Colin Davis - too lush for my mood that night. I saw Intermezzo on video, I’d quite like to see it in the theatre. I don’t think I’ve seen any other Strauss operas.

From the orchestral music, I’ve got a soft spot for Zarathustra - the trio. I used to have my alarm set to waking me up with The Alpine Symphony. Death and Transfiguration is fabulous. Personally I can do without Don Quixote and The Domestic Symphony and the horn concertos, just not my cup of tea.

I saw Enoch Arden once - John Vickers did it in the Wigmore Hall. Even Vickers couldn’t make me enjoy it I’m afraid.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Simon Moon said:


> These both seem an awful lot like subjective opinions, being stated as if they are an objective fact.
> 
> I know these opinions are held by the majority of TC members, and classical fans in general, they are still opinion.
> 
> ...


The difference between your opinion and those opinions are the facts that back them up. I understand that you prefer post 1940 music and that’s fine, but that doesn’t change the fact that the classical music world continues to be influenced far more by pre 1930 music than that that followed. And, referencing other posts, Richard Strauss has had far more influence on CM than Stockhausen will ever have.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> _The elevation of ordinary life just seems to me to be a major aspect of early 20th century modernity. I mean, in Symphonia Domestica there’s music representing bathing the baby....And Intermezzo is about an ordinary domestic row between husband and wife. Contrast this with the sort of subject matter Wagner and Verdi chose._


I suppose the subject for _Intermezzo_ could at a push come under the mod-ish _zeitoper_ category even if the characters and the music definitely couldn't.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Philidor said:


> Chromaticism? I wouldn't call the chromaticism in Elektra "modern". See Gesualdo.
> 
> Modern is the bitonality that can be found in places, e. g. with the "Elektra chord".


The more I think about it, the more I think it’s totally bizarre to say that “modernity” hinges on a chord. As if a chord could matter! If it’s right, I think it shows that music is totally vacuous, solely a question of style. _Modernity_, in the way that Joyce and Faulkner and Céline were moderns, isn’t a concept which can apply. To say that Elektra’s modernity resides in a chord is as strange as saying that the modernity of _Voyage au bout de la nuit _resides in its syntax.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

DaveM said:


> Richard Strauss has had far more influence on CM than Stockhausen will ever have.


On what grounds?


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## Yabetz (Sep 6, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> The more I think about it, the more I think it’s totally bizarre to say that “modernity” hinges on a chord. As if a chord could matter! ...


The "Tristan chord", maybe. 

Re: Strauss, I've read that Mahler said of him "My day will come when his has ended." Eerily prophetic if authentic.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

superhorn said:


> I've always been a huge fan of the music of Richard Strauss ...so many critics and composers have been so dismissive of him and of his less frequently performed later operas among other works . I don't know if you have read the biography by the late critic Georg Marek called "Richard Strauss: Life of a non-hero ". This is typical of. those dismissive critics . Marek admires basically only a handful of works by Strauss, basically the best known ones , but even here he has many reservations .
> ...This biography is insufferably snooty and condescending toward a truly great composer .


I haven't read that one, but I did read Michael Kennedy's biography, written in 1999. I gave my thoughts about it on the Strauss page, link below. I mentioned Kennedy's discussion of why a lot of the earlier biographies of Strauss didn't do him full justice, partly because they relied too heavily on a handful of unreliable sources.

Kennedy also questioned the formerly widespread view that after being at the cutting edge with Salome and Elektra, Strauss was a backslider. He said that even though what came after was indeed a period of consolidation, Strauss still kept up with trends which interested him (e.g. with Der Rosenkavalier, he predated aspects of the Neo-Classical trend which would become widespread a decade later).









Richard Strauss


Der Rosenkavalier, Capriccio, both horn concertos, early piano sonata (Op 8?). sinphonia Domestica, Metamorphosen, his entire opus. Spelling is bad but I'm running out as I write this. His late masterpieces shouldn't be neglected:




www.talkclassical.com


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

ARE THE BEATLES AVANT-GARDE?

Yes and no. 

*The Beatles* were many things, and released music in many styles, Avant-Garde amongst them. They dabbled in chamber music, music hall, Progressive, Grunge, Metal, Rock, Pop, Country, Novelty, Folk, etc.

That's one of the many things that made them great, and why 50 years after the band broke up people STILL talk about them, their music, their controversies, their break-up, firing a drummer in 1962, their clothes, their hair, Apple Corps, Magic Alex, etc.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Can you imagine anyone saying the Beatles were avant garde because of a chord? The Day In A Life instrumental outro chord maybe.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Can you imagine anyone saying the Beatles were avant garde because of a chord? The Day In A Life instrumental outro chord maybe.


I can't tell whether you think you're being funny, or not.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> The more I think about it, the more I think it’s totally bizarre to say that “modernity” hinges on a chord.


I think that nobody said that modernity hinged on a chord.

But if I remember right, some guy stated that Elektra wasn't more modern than Reger's, Busoni's or Wagner's music. I think this can only have been a joke to fire on the discussion. 

And by reducing Elektra to chromaticism this guy finally left the ground of a serious discussion. That's a pity, because in the beginning the statements appeared to be meaningful.


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## hoodjem (Feb 23, 2019)

Richard Strauss is a very good German composer.
I love his _Four Last Songs_, and a few other works. His tone poems are quite interesting or entertaining. His horn concerti and operas are also noteworthy. 

But he does not rank with Bach or Beethoven. Such is self-flattery.
He might be a big hill before some flatlands, but certainly not a mountain peak.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

I doubt whether one could say that the time of mountain peaks is over.

Up to the 19th century there were tradition: How an opera in Italy was written, how a symphony in Germany was written, what a string quartet was expected to be etc. etc. With all evolution within a genre, from Rossini to Puccini, from late Haydn to early Mahler, from Wagner to early Schoenberg. Even the 2nd Vienna School implemented its tradition.

Within a tradition you can easily recognize the peaks and the lower summits.

But after 1950? Ok, a little bit of serial composition. But traditions? In order to find out what is a peak and what is not, you need to compare. But what is the tertium comparationis after 1950?

It is an obvious hyperbolism, but I try as follows: After 1950, composers found for each work a new language and a new form. Obvious tertia comparationum didn't exist no more.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Was Strauss sympathetic towards new musical developments in Germany after, say WWI? If not, then perhaps the flatlands for him could also be synonymous with the end of the Romantic era as the new breed of German composers - Hindemith, Weill, Wolpe, Hartmann etc. sought different paths.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I’ve got a slightly serious question for the people who know about the mechanism of music. I’ve been listening to Schoenberg’s Das Buch Der Hängenden Gärten, which was written in the first decade of the 20th century. Is there anything in it which Strauss would have rejected at the time of writing Electra?


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> I’ve been listening to Schoenberg’s Das Buch Der Hängenden Gärten, which was written in the first decade of the 20th century. Is there anything in it which Strauss would have rejected at the time of writing Electra?


It is always good to ask questions in a precise way. Questions of the kind "which composer is the last peak in the romantic era of orchestral music?" can't be answered in a reliable way without first defining what a peak among composers is and which works belong to the romantic era of orchestral music.

"Elektra" was written between 1906 and 1908.
"Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten" op. 15, the first atonal song cycle, was finalized in February 1909.

So to answer the question in a substantiated way, we need two things: (1) A time machine for us, as we need the composer, who has to answer the question whether he had rejected anything. (2) A time machine for Strauss, as at the time of writing Elektra the song cycle was not accomplished yet.

As a matter of fact. we do not have time machines at our disposal. What a pity.

So the second best that we could do to get near to something that could be regarded being similar to an answer by the composer, is to look at the relationship between Strauss and the character and the qualitites of the song cycle.

To make it short: "Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten" is atonal, and Strauss' opinion on atonal and dodecaphonic music was known - he refused it. (The fact that the subject of the fugue in "Zarathustra" is almost a tone row in the dodecaphonic meaning - there are two repeated tones before the row comes to its end - doesn't change this.)

I am sorry to refer to third party opinions, but I didn't find anything better.

Here is an article from the nmz, "Neue Musikzeitung", stating " ... dass er die Moderne vor allem um Schönberg spätestens seit der emanzipierten Atonalität ablehnte, ist bekannt." (_" ... it is known that he (Strauss) refused the Moderism in particular around Schönberg since at least the emancipated atonality"_)
Strauss und die Moderne | Ausgabe: 11/99 | nmz - neue musikzeitung

So the only conclusion at my disposal is that Strauss had refused "Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten".

Should anyone be interested in statements from Strauss himself on atonality, he could find something in this excerpt:
Richard Strauss - ReadingSample (windows.net)


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I’ve got a slightly serious question for the people who know about the mechanism of music. I’ve been listening to Schoenberg’s Das Buch Der Hängenden Gärten, which was written in the first decade of the 20th century. Is there anything in it which Strauss would have rejected at the time of writing Electra?


Without getting into details, my slightly serious answer is 'probably'. Schönberg credited Mahler and Strauss for the line of development that made _Buch Der Hängenden Gärten_ possible, “the first step towards a new expression in music” which brushed aside the last remnants of tonality. Wagner, Strauss, and Mahler had been increasingly testing the limits of, and subverting, the tonal system, without abandoning it. Schönberg found Strauss supportive enough to offer him the Five Pieces for Orchestra in 1909, but Strauss turned them down. In_ Electra _traditional harmony and melody seem to be disintegrating, but the familiar boundaries remain: e.g. the opera ends in the conventional key of C major. Strauss seemed to sense that modernism was going where he didn’t wish to follow. Strauss’ own slightly later _Ophelia-lieder _can, I think, be interpreted as a work of German expressionism- albeit literary rather than musical.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Interesting to think about what Schoenberg thought he was gaining in the harmonic system of Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten over that of Elektra, and vice versa. It is true that, when I think of Clytemnestra’s aria, the one about her nightmare, for example, there is a sense of home key which seems lacking in the Schoenberg,


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Couchie said:


> "...seeing himself as last in line after the German greats Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner, Strauss once said, '*I am the last mountain of a large mountain range. After me come the flatlands*')." - Richard Strauss Source
> 
> Do you agree with Richard Strauss' self-assessment? Was he the last of the great German composer lineage?


It depends on what he means by "great". If by "great" you just mean a extremely talented/competent composer of very high caliber, then no, he is not the last. As has been stated previously, other Germans after him also fit that description (Henze for one). But if he means "great" as in referring to historically significant (although he is not on the same tier as the others he listed), then yes, I agree with him. It's not necessarily a shortcoming of the composers that came after him, it's many factors that contribute to that. Not going to go into it though. But yes, in my opinion that would be correct.


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## hoodjem (Feb 23, 2019)

R. Strauss flatters himself.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Strauss is in my 'Top 5' favorite composers of all-time, but there were other German composers after him that made mark on music in their own individual ways. A few that come to mind: Hindemith, K. A. Hartmann, Henze, B. A. Zimmermann and Weill.


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