# Richard Strauss



## pianomusic1976 (Sep 15, 2016)

Let's talk about Strauss. What's your favorite piece by him?

My favorite recording of a piece by him:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Someone is confused. Not all Strausses are created equal.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I like Elektra Salome and Daphne equally.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

I'm a bit confused right now, so let's just go with _Also sprach Blue Danube_.

If it's Richard Strauss, then _Four Last Songs_ (1948)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Richard did indeed like waltzes and his operas are full of waltz tunes (to which no one waltzes!), but the real waltz guy wasn't even related to him. Johann Jr. was the most famous of a family of dance music composers, including his father Johann Sr. and his brothers Josef and Eduard.

My favorite Johann Jr. work is the operetta _Die Fledermaus,_ but among his waltzes my favorite is the _Emperor Waltz._ I love its march introduction, its broad, majestic tunes, and its poignant coda:






Of Richard Strauss, it has to be his _Four Last Songs._ I like Schwarzkopf singing them:


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

He is definitely among the top three 20th century composers judging by how well received his music have been during his own times and even to this day, hardly eclipsed thanks to solid craftsmanship and contemporary accessibility.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

ArtMusic said:


> He is definitely among the top three 20th century composers judging by how well received his music have been during his own times and even to this day, hardly eclipsed thanks to solid craftsmanship and contemporary accessibility.


Yeah by that standard Mahler, Puccini, Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky - heck, and Rachmaninov - all kick his butt.

Of course there is something very important about Strauss: He influenced Schönberg.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

pianomusic1976 said:


> Let's talk about Strauss. What's your favorite piece by him?
> 
> My favorite recording of a piece by him:


I was not in a position were I could click on the link when I first saw this thread.


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## talkclassical2000 (Sep 16, 2016)

I love all his pieces


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Magnum Miserium said:


> Yeah by that standard Mahler, Puccini, Debussy, Ravel, and Stravinsky - heck, and Rachmaninov - all kick his butt.
> 
> Of course there is something very important about Strauss: He influenced Schönberg.


Strauss today is much more popular than Schoenberg.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> Strauss today is much more popular than Schoenberg.


To me, Strauss is the much greater composer. Odd that that is a more controversial opinion, it would seem, than my opinion that Schumann is a much greater composer than Schubert. But then they're all just opinions so who cares.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

ArtMusic said:


> Strauss today is much more popular than Schoenberg.


Yeah but Schönberg's better.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

bz3 said:


> p Odd that that is a more controversial opinion, it would seem, than my opinion that Schumann is a much greater composer than Schubert.


That's a pretty controversial - or uncommon, anyway - opinion.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Magnum Miserium said:


> Yeah but Schönberg's better.


You wish......

Four last songs are stunning, as are his opera's


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Pugg said:


> You wish......
> 
> Four last songs are stunning, as are his opera's


They are both good but I prefer Strauss.


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## Templeton (Dec 20, 2014)

Definitely 'An Alpine Symphony' for me, one of the most uplifting pieces that I have ever heard. I also love 'Ein Heldenleben', a wonderfully epic piece.


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## Marsilius (Jun 13, 2015)

Josephslegende - his longest orchestral piece in a continuous span. The recording by the Budapest Festival Orchestra / Ivan Fischer is very fine.


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## micro (Jun 18, 2016)

Great composer who composed some good modern music before it was cool.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

micro said:


> Great composer who composed some good modern music before it was cool.


But Debussy came first.


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## micro (Jun 18, 2016)

Chronochromie said:


> But Debussy came first.


Liszt came first?


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

micro said:


> Liszt came first?


If we go down that route, then Wagner/Berlioz came first, then Beethoven, etc.


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## micro (Jun 18, 2016)

Chronochromie said:


> If we go down that route, then Wagner/Berlioz came first, then Beethoven, etc.


But Haydn and Mozart came first.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

micro said:


> But Haydn and Mozart came first.


Well no, Guido d'Arezzo came first!


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## micro (Jun 18, 2016)

Chronochromie said:


> Well no, Guido d'Arezzo came first!


Kassiani came before that guy.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

micro said:


> Kassiani came before that guy.


But the Hurrians came before her.


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## pianomusic1976 (Sep 15, 2016)

And the Neanderthals came before them.


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## pjang23 (Oct 8, 2009)

Wiegenlied Op.41 No.1


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## micro (Jun 18, 2016)

pianomusic1976 said:


> And the Neanderthals came before them.
> View attachment 88804


Well, that escalated quickly.


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## Vinski (Dec 16, 2012)

pianomusic1976 said:


> View attachment 88804


Strauss Vater, I presume.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

Vinski said:


> Strauss Vater, I presume.


You presume wrong!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Templeton said:


> Definitely 'An Alpine Symphony' for me, one of the most uplifting pieces that I have ever heard. I also love 'Ein Heldenleben', a wonderfully epic piece.


I played the disc from Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw yesterday......beautiful.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Pugg said:


> I played the disc from Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw yesterday......beautiful.


Yes! My favorite recording of the Alpine Symphony as well.

My other favorite Strauss pieces are Four Last Songs and Metamorphosen - both wonderfully poignant.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Was Schoenberg a greater composer than Strauss? Not according to Strauss, who said "Keep that bald-headed little nerd and his Verklarte Nacht away from me! I have an important meeting with some Nazis…"

Not really. I like the Four Last Songs, sung by anybody but that irritating Schwartzkopf; and Metamorphosen; and Sextet from Cappriccio.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I get a bit of a kick out of the fact that an almost collective decision was made to follow the title of the thread rather than the OP. Poor Johann loses out to Richard.


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## Guest (Sep 20, 2016)

I prefer the other Strausses to Richard, but probably Schoenberg to all of them. I mean, An Die Schone Blaue is all very well but it meanders and is too long.


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## Guest (Sep 20, 2016)

[Mobile phone posting problems...sorry]


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## TwoPhotons (Feb 13, 2015)

Strauss is one of my favourite composers. I like his tone poems in particular, as well as Salome and Elektra. Salome is probably my favourite work of his, but An Alpine Symphony is my favourite tone poem. 

What I particiularly like about AAS is that, while it has a simple concept - it's just some music about a walk in the mountains - it's crafted with the utmost love. Each "scene", from the Sunrise to the Watefall to the Meadow to the Storm, has music which almost uncannily matches the landscape (even despite the "literal" instruments like cowbells and thunder sheets). Of course, Strauss is good at this sort of stuff in general, but the fact that the setting is so simple and innocent is something that gives this work a likeable quality (Sinfonia Domestica makes me feel similarly, although I prefer the actual music in AAS). 

I have yet to explore Strauss' later operas, although I heard the 1st act of Die Frau ohne Schatten once, and that was impressive. I've also heard the Vier letzte Lieder, the Tomowa-Sintow recording with Karajan. Truly sublime music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

TwoPhotons said:


> What I particiularly like about AAS is that, while it has a simple concept - it's just some music about a walk in the mountains - it's crafted with the utmost love. Each "scene", from the Sunrise to the Watefall to the Meadow to the Storm, has music which almost uncannily matches the landscape (even despite the "literal" instruments like cowbells and thunder sheets).
> 
> .


I once heard someone give a lecture on it who argued that it had a religious (Christian) content.



TwoPhotons said:


> Of course, Strauss is good at this sort of stuff in general, but the fact that the setting is so simple and innocent is something that gives this work a likeable quality (Sinfonia Domestica makes me feel similarly, although I prefer the actual music in AAS).
> 
> .


This is a way in which Strauss was extremely modern -- in his exaltation of the most banal things in ordinary life -- bathing a baby, playing cards, that sort of thing. D H Lawrence is similar in this respect, and James Joyce. People sometimes say that Strauss after Elektra became decadent, but it may be more complex than that -- I haven't done the work.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> This is a way in which Strauss was extremely modern -- in his exaltation of the most banal things in ordinary life -- bathing a baby, playing cards, that sort of thing.


I would say that makes him not extremely modern but a typical 19th century bourgeois.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Is this "realism" like Ibsen? That's a form of modernism.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> Is this "realism" like Ibsen? That's a form of modernism.


The "Sinfonia domestica" celebrates a bourgeois family. Realism celebrates workers and farmers - when it celebrates anybody - and critiques the bourgeoisie.

Also, I feel obligated to note that saying '"realism" like Ibsen' does an injustice both to the inventors of Realism - the painters of the Barbizon school - and to Ibsen, whose magnum opus, Peer Gynt, has nothing to do with Realism whatsoever.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Is this "realism" like Ibsen? That's a form of modernism.


Well an example is how, when Bloom finally gets to bed, he kisses the bottom of his sleeping wife and mutters "melonsmelonous". A totally ordinary thing -- kissing a loved one's bottom -- becomes full of meaning, a metaphor for love and fidelity. A similar thing happens with the advert for Plumtree's Potted Meat, which becomes a metaphor for children.









There are similar things in Sons and Lovers.


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## Guest (Sep 20, 2016)

Ibsen was regarded as a "realist".


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

DaveM said:


> I get a bit of a kick out of the fact that an almost collective decision was made to follow the title of the thread rather than the OP. Poor Johann loses out to Richard.


Only if you let them, if you like Johan also or just Johan, nobody going to say you can't.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

MacLeod said:


> Ibsen was regarded as a "realist".


Sure, and in much of his later work - even to some extent in Brand - the designation is perfectly valid. It just ticks me off that, in most Anglophone high school and even undergraduate level surveys of history or literature, Ibsen is now the guy who wrote A Doll's House and maybe The Pillars of Society and Ghosts (not that anyone reads or even knows what the plot is of Pillars or Ghosts, they just know that the title of the former is sarcastic and that there's syphilis in latter) - not even the guy who wrote Hedda Gabler; not even the guy who wrote When the Dead Awaken - and Peer Gynt, the greatest play since Schiller (at least), and anticipatory of so much that we consider to be innovations of 20th century theater, gets brushed under the rug.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

Wow, no love at all for Also sprach Zarathustra? I find it one of the most compelling and fascinating pieces of classical music. The ridiculously simple Dawn theme of C-G-C is treated in a myriad of manners and moods, fragmented, reworked and still always floating obsessively to the surface, like a symphonic theme and variations run through a kaleidoscope. It covers the gamut of emotion and a close listening never stops being rewarding. I have at last count 26 recordings of it and am always on the lookout for more. My iPod includes a smart playlist of nothing but Zarathustras, so whenever I get another one it's automatically added and I can just shuffle amongst them when the spirit moves me. An amazing piece of work that deserves to be better known for more than just the introduction used in 2001: A Space Odyssey. My imprint version was Zubin Mehta with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. My current favorite is Stokowski with the American Symphony, but that can change from day to day.


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## Guest (Sep 23, 2016)

Magnum Miserium said:


> Sure, and in much of his later work - even to some extent in Brand - the designation is perfectly valid. It just ticks me off that, in most Anglophone high school and even undergraduate level surveys of history or literature, Ibsen is now the guy who wrote A Doll's House and maybe The Pillars of Society and Ghosts (not that anyone reads or even knows what the plot is of Pillars or Ghosts, they just know that the title of the former is sarcastic and that there's syphilis in latter) - not even the guy who wrote Hedda Gabler; not even the guy who wrote When the Dead Awaken - and Peer Gynt, the greatest play since Schiller (at least), and anticipatory of so much that we consider to be innovations of 20th century theater, gets brushed under the rug.


Well any 'designation' for an artist whose output ranges from the 'early works' in one style to the 'middle' and 'later' in other styles is liable to over-generalise. Was Picasso always a 'Cubist'? Did The Beatles only write 3-minute pop?

Whether Peer Gynt is Ibsen's magnum opus is a moot point, and whether artists are condemned (or crowned) by the labels they attract, complete rejection of a label is as risky as wholeheartedly embracing.

BTW - "Realism" was not "invented" by any single individual or school - and realism in theatre is not the same as realism in art (just as romanticism in literature and music are not altogether the same beast).


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

MacLeod said:


> Well any 'designation' for an artist whose output ranges from the 'early works' in one style to the 'middle' and 'later' in other styles is liable to over-generalise. Was Picasso always a 'Cubist'? Did The Beatles only write 3-minute pop?
> 
> Whether Peer Gynt is Ibsen's magnum opus is a moot point, and whether artists are condemned (or crowned) by the labels they attract, complete rejection of a label is as risky as wholeheartedly embracing.


Labels are necessary. Realism just happens to be the wrong label for Ibsen. It's as if Picasso, instead of being known primarily as a Cubist - obviously a radical simplification, but the correct simplification - were known primarily as a Neoclassicist.

That leaves the question of what label would be correct for Peer Gynt. "Proto-surrealist," maybe.

*Edit:* Or, given the affinities with Kierkegaard, maybe "proto-existentialist" is more to the point. (Interesting thing, existentialism: Its anticipators - Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Ibsen, Nietzsche - are vastly greater than its central figure Sartre. Maybe one solution, at least for Kierkegaard and Ibsen, is to say "existential," with no "-ism.")



MacLeod said:


> BTW - "Realism" was not "invented" by any single individual or school - and realism in theatre is not the same as realism in art (just as romanticism in literature and music are not altogether the same beast).


Maybe, but since the visual arts aren't taken as seriously as politics, social science, philosophy, or even literature, it's a useful corrective to remember that they are sometimes the first field in which new ideas emerge from the implicit to the explicit. (And of course the same goes for music.)


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

By the way, Richard Strauss is art nouveau.


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

gardibolt said:


> Wow, no love at all for Also sprach Zarathustra?


Lots of it! R. Strauss is one of my favourites. Zarathustra, 4 last songs, Alpine Symphony, concertos, wind sonantinas, Rosenkavalier, even his symphonies. All great, really. Strauss is funny for me, because sometimes I don't even recognise which work is which (nor care), it's all Strauss.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Magnum Miserium said:


> By the way, Richard Strauss is art nouveau.


but sure, he even lived in an era of art nouveau, I mean not just stylistically, but historically. Stylistically he outran his time starting with ¨"Don Juan "


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Lenny said:


> Lots of it! R. Strauss is one of my favourites. Zarathustra, 4 last songs, Alpine Symphony, concertos, wind sonantinas, Rosenkavalier, even his symphonies. All great, really. Strauss is funny for me, because sometimes I don't even recognise which work is which (nor care), it's all Strauss.


you enjoy a feast of sounds when a master of ceremony is monsieur Strauss the Richard


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2016)

Magnum Miserium said:


> *Labels are necessary*. Realism just happens to be the wrong label for Ibsen. It's as if Picasso, instead of being known primarily as a Cubist - obviously a radical simplification, but the correct simplification - were known primarily as a Neoclassicist.
> 
> That leaves the question of what label would be correct for Peer Gynt. "Proto-surrealist," maybe.
> 
> ...


Labels may be helpful in certain circumstances, but I don't see them as necessary, and they're never precise enough to be taken seriously except by those who have to spend their time debating them. I mean, in English literature, "Romanticism" carries some of the seeds of realism, but this seems often to be overlooked in the rush to condemn an excess of the emotions and mystery and imagination. The Lyrical Ballads were published in 1798, and offered a quite different take on what the subject of poetry should be. For example...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idiot_Boy.

I also wouldn't say that the visual arts aren't taken as seriously as any of those things you've listed (and certainly not social science), though I guess it depends on where you feel you belong in relation to different media. I think I stand roughly equidistant from them all, having sufficient pseudo-knowledge about stuff from different fields to do well in a trivia quiz team, stand in front of The Nightwatch and say silly things about it without fear of being overheard, and able to argue loudly about who is the more miserable, Kierkegaard or Schopenhauer.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

MacLeod said:


> Labels may be helpful in certain circumstances, but I don't see them as necessary, and they're never precise enough to be taken seriously except by those who have to spend their time debating them.


Complaining that labels aren't precise enough is taking them seriously.



MacLeod said:


> I mean, in English literature, "Romanticism" carries some of the seeds of realism...


In English lit and everywhere else. The older ideas always carry seeds of the newer.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I assume this is now officially a Richard Strauss thread and not a Johann Strauss one?


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## Atrahasis (Aug 5, 2015)

Strauss is, for me, the ultimate philosopher of classical music.
He understood what he needed to do, and he had done it best.

Life, death, pictures of mountain and nature which in elegent way depict vast spaces of universe, human existance and purpose/meaning of life. He was and still is the master of tone poems and classical music in general. He and Mahler are my favorite composers of profound classical music.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Atrahasis said:


> Strauss is, for me, the ultimate philosopher of classical music.
> He understood what he needed to do, and he had done it best.
> 
> Life, death, pictures of mountain and nature which in elegent way depict vast spaces of universe, human existance and purpose/meaning of life. He was and still is the master of tone poems and classical music in general. He and Mahler are my favorite composers of profound classical music.


Fabulous album. I have the original vinyl too.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2016)

Magnum Miserium said:


> Complaining that labels aren't precise enough is taking them seriously.


Who's complaining?


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## Atrahasis (Aug 5, 2015)

Barbebleu said:


> Fabulous album. I have the original vinyl too.


Indeed. Sublime music for deep contemplation.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

MacLeod said:


> I mean, in English literature, "Romanticism" carries some of the seeds of realism...


In English lit and everywhere else. The older ideas always carry seeds of the newer.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

By the way, the ultimate philosopher of classical music, for whatever that's worth, is Wagner.


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## Atrahasis (Aug 5, 2015)

Wagner, is also one of the greatest masters.
Yes! Thanks for mentioning that titian of epic music, sir:tiphat:


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Magnum Miserium said:


> By the way, the ultimate philosopher of classical music, for whatever that's worth, is Wagner.


Hello Magnum.
I'm not sure what you mean by that but I'm sure you're mistaken! :tiphat:


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> Hello Magnum.


Hello Petwhac.



Petwhac said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by that


Same thing Atrahasis meant.



Petwhac said:


> but I'm sure you're mistaken! :tiphat:


Why?


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Magnum Miserium said:


> Hello Petwhac.
> 
> Same thing Atrahasis meant.
> 
> Why?


If you mean Wagner was a great master then only a fool would disagree. Ultimate philosopher? Ultimate? Philosopher? No.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

(Wagner's stealing Strauss' fire in his own thread...)


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2016)

Atrahasis said:


> Wagner, is also one of the greatest masters.
> Yes! Thanks for mentioning that titian of epic music, sir:tiphat:


Titian or titan (or Titan)?


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> Ultimate philosopher?


Not what Atrahasis or I wrote.



Petwhac said:


> Ultimate?


Still not what Atrahasis or I wrote.



Petwhac said:


> Philosopher?


Still not what Atrahasis or I wrote.



MacLeod said:


> Titian or titan (or Titan)?


Can't it be both?


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## Atrahasis (Aug 5, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> Titian or titan (or Titan)?


HAHAH I severely misspelled that word:lol:
*Titan *of course!

*P.S. Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and *mythological *and *religious *subjects.

So, take what you like


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Magnum Miserium said:


> Not what Atrahasis or I wrote.
> 
> Still not what Atrahasis or I wrote.
> 
> ...


I refer you to post #61


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Petwhac said:


> I refer you to post #61


Here is Magnum Miserium's post #61



Magnum Miserium said:


> By the way, the ultimate philosopher of classical music, for whatever that's worth, is Wagner.


Ultimate philosopher of classical music =/= ultimate philosopher.


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## Magnum Miserium (Aug 15, 2016)

Petwhac said:


> I refer you to post #61


Why? Everybody can see what I wrote there - "the ultimate philosopher of classical music" (the same words Atrahasis wrote earlier) - and everybody can see you never writing that.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Magnum Miserium said:


> Why? Everybody can see what I wrote there - "the ultimate philosopher of classical music" (the same words Atrahasis wrote earlier) - and everybody can see you never writing that.


How can something so simple get so confused? Forgive me. You said "By the way, the ultimate philosopher of classical music, for whatever that's worth, is Wagner." And I merely questioned your claim. I didn't think I had to distinguish between "ultimate philosopher of classical music" and ultimate philosopher. I thought that much was obvious.
But there you are. We'll leave it at that as you probably don't wish to expand on your claim or you would have done so already.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sorry to butt in, but a "philosopher of music" - which in Wagner's case means both a "philosopher about music" and a "philosopher through music" (strictly speaking, music drama) - is different from a philosopher in the general sense, though Wagner was also that. Wagner produced nine volumes of prose in his lifetime dealing with music, opera, culture, politics, religion, and other subjects. No other composer I know of compares even remotely. 

Strauss a philosopher? He turned Nietzsche's philosophical pop-hero into a technicolor spectacular. He did the same with Cervantes, Greek tragedy, Bible stories, his own home life, etc. His operas tackle such philosophical questions as whether a woman with encroaching crow's feet should keep her boy-toy, whether words or music are more important in opera, and whether a barren fairy tale empress should steal fertility from childless peasants.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Should've stuck to just composing and maybe we'd have a couple of mature Wagner symphonies.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Chronochromie said:


> Should've stuck to just composing and maybe we'd have a couple of mature Wagner symphonies.


Give us your favourites first.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Pugg said:


> Give us your favourites first.


Uhm...my favorite what?


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Sorry to butt in, but a "philosopher of music" - which in Wagner's case means both a "philosopher about music" and a "philosopher through music" (strictly speaking, music drama) - is different from a philosopher in the general sense, though Wagner was also that. Wagner produced nine volumes of prose in his lifetime dealing with music, opera, culture, politics, religion, and other subjects. No other composer I know of compares even remotely.
> 
> Strauss a philosopher? He turned Nietzsche's philosophical pop-hero into a technicolor spectacular. He did the same with Cervantes, Greek tragedy, Bible stories, his own home life, etc. His operas tackle such philosophical questions as whether a woman with encroaching crow's feet should keep her boy-toy, whether words or music are more important in opera, and whether a barren fairy tale empress should steal fertility from childless peasants.


that's all right!

sure topics of many operas, not just Strauss's are on the edge of nonsense ...but there is one thing is that through this shallowness one can see more than that...not a plot, pure superficial plot what we see on a surface is of almost no value, but there are mysteries in music, music sometimes reveals so much more of what even a composer was unaware of ( I guess), it is in music and through music that a work of little importance ( some opera librettos) has its second and more profound meaning....


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Chronochromie said:


> Should've stuck to just composing and maybe we'd have a couple of mature Wagner symphonies.


If he'd stuck to just composing we wouldn't have the operas, which are not just musical compositions. But the main reason we don't have late Wagner symphonies may be his bad health and his death at 69. If he'd lived to be as old as Strauss (till 1898) he could have had competition from all of Bruckner's symphonies up to #8 (and seen #9 in score), as well as the last two of Brahms and the first two of Mahler.

A personal relationship between the old Wagner and the young Wagnerite Mahler is an interesting thing to contemplate. No doubt Mahler as conductor would have played Wagner's symphonies, probably to the composer's great satisfaction.

Idle fantasies.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> If he'd stuck to just composing we wouldn't have the operas, which are not just musical compositions


Should have hired a librettist...although that would be a different Richard Wagner altogether. He was really into his whole myth-plot-philosophical thingies, wasn't he? I'm not.

Anyway it'd have been interesting to see him try his hand at a symphony or orchestral work late in his career.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Chronochromie said:


> Should have hired a librettist...although that would be a different Richard Wagner altogether. *He was really into his whole myth-plot-philosophical thingies*, wasn't he? I'm not.
> 
> Anyway it'd have been interesting to see him try his hand at a symphony or orchestral work late in his career.


Can't imagine life without those Wagner thingies. :lol:


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Can't imagine life without those Wagner thingies. :lol:


Enjoy! I'm fine with just his music. To each his own.


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Idle fantasies.


One of my Wagner fantasy is that Rott's phenomenal symphony was actually written by Wagner, or at least directly influenced. I cannot explain that symphony... it's so weird. 

Back to Strauss. Lately I've been listening to his early piece Aus Italien. Interesting piece with mystical opening. It has lots of hints towards his later masterpieces.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> If he'd stuck to just composing we wouldn't have the operas, which are not just musical compositions. But the main reason we don't have late Wagner symphonies may be his bad health and his death at 69. If he'd lived to be as old as Strauss (till 1898) he could have had competition from all of Bruckner's symphonies up to #8 (and seen #9 in score), as well as the last two of Brahms and the first two of Mahler.
> *
> A personal relationship between the old Wagner and the young Wagnerite Mahler is an interesting thing to contemplate. No doubt Mahler as conductor would have played Wagner's symphonies, probably to the composer's great satisfaction.
> *
> Idle fantasies.


I was thinking about Mahler in connection with Wagner just the other day. I am a great fan of Mahler. As I was listening to the beginning of Gotterdammerung, it sounded all the world like a Mahlerian song cycle. Obviously the influence would be from Wagner to Mahler not the other way around, but I make that connection based on which one I was familiar with first. It's no coincidence then that Gotterdammerung is one of my favorite Wagner operas.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Chronochromie said:


> Uhm...my favourite what?


Wagner symphonies.


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

Pugg said:


> Wagner symphonies.


My favourite is his symphony in C major 

It's actually quite decent.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Pugg said:


> Wagner symphonies.


Well no, I don't like them, that was the point.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

What about Strauss's two youthful symphonies? Anyone have an opinion about them? Some of his early chamber works are rather nice.


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## Lenny (Jul 19, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> What about Strauss's two youthful symphonies? Anyone have an opinion about them? Some of his early chamber works are rather nice.


I like the first. It sounds fresh, although a bit like "schoolbook", tons of Brahms influence (I think Brahms himself said it's "quite nice"). The second I don't really like that much. It's one of these works I cannot remember at all, even though listen to it quite often.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Chronochromie said:


> Well no, I don't like them, that was the point.


Completely understood now .


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