Souvenirs of a Great Artist - Richard Strauss

 

At first glance this photograph
of a gentleman seated in a handsome wooden armchair,
could be mistaken for a formal portrait
of some business executive or prominent dignitary.
 

 But actually it's a memento
of a performance of this man's music.
It's not a program from his concert,
not his latest CD album,
not even a souvenir tee-shirt.
Just a simple postcard of a musician
who is not even identified by a musical instrument.
That's because his name is linked
to every orchestral instrument
and every kind of vocalist.

 

It's a token from an opera performance
of the great German composer and conductor,
Richard Strauss (1864–1949).

 

 Today I present six souvenir postcards
of Richard Strauss,
an artist in music.

 

 

He appears first in this caricature sketch
drawn by Han Boehler. It is captioned:

Dr. Richard Strauss.

In the upper left corner is a small drawing of an ostrich under the name Richard. This is a subtle joke because the German word for ostrich is Strauss.  Since ancient times Strauss has been a common Germanic surname, often connected to medieval merchants  who hung a sign depicting an ostrich outside their shop. However Richard Strauss was not related to another musical Strauss family from Vienna: Johann Strauss Sr.. and his more famous son, Johann Strauss Jr. the so-called waltz king.   

Richard Strauss came from another musical city, München, where he was born in 1864 when it was the capital of the Kingdom of Bavaria. His father was Franz Strauss (1822–1905), a virtuoso horn player employed as solo horn at the Bavarian Court Opera. During his career Franz was celebrated for his connection to the composer Richard Wagner (1813–1883) as he played many of the premieres of Wagner's operas, including Tristan und Isolde, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Parsifal.

Richard Strauss was thus exposed to great music and musicians from the start, and at age four he began his first music lessons on piano, by age six he was composing his first music, and by eight he took up the violin. In this era Munich was considered an important center for Germanic arts and culture and Franz Strauss easily found teachers for his precocious son. By the time he was 20 Strauss had already cultivated a wide musical experience as a performer, composer, and a conductor. 

One of Strauss's greatest compositions was his Horn Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 11 written when he was just age 18. This piece remains a core standard for all horn players to study, and it was this wonderful music that captured my imagination as a young horn player and introduced me to the music of Richard Strauss.  [Click this LINK to hear one of my favorite versions with hornist Radovan Vlatkovic and the Dutch Radio Filharmonisch Orkest.]

This postcard has a copyright by a German music publishing house, Breitkopf & Härtel, which was founded in 1719 in Leipzig and still continues today as a rental and sales agency for classical composers of our century. This card was intended for the English market as it was printed at its London office on Great Marlborough Street. However it was sent from Munich on 1 September 1910 to Mrs. W. T. Craig of Glasgow, Scotland.

 

Dear Ch.   I thought you might like
this for your collection. Arery(?) and
I have been here (Munich) since
Sat, and move on tomorrow to
Lena von Saffern's(?)  We had beau
tiful weather for Nürnberg and
at the beginning of our stay here
but yesterday and to-day, it
has rained.  I went to Rheingold
on Monday in the Prinz Regenten
theatre.  It was quite an experience
and I just got the ticket by accident.
There isn't another to had.  There is so
much here. I want to do it is e...(?) twice
we went.  I trust(?) you are better. oh. oh. .. A.
Sept 1st  1910

 

The writer refers to going to the Prinz-Regenten-Theater to see Das Rheingold, Wagner's first of four music-dramas in his Ring of the Nibelung cycle of operas.  The theater is a concert and opera hall separate from the Bavarian State Opera's Nationaltheater on Max-Joseph-Platz, though it is used by them occasionally. It was built following Richard Wagner's ideas for theater design and opened in 1901 with a production of his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

 Prinz-Regenten-Theater, Munich, Germany
Source: Wikipedia

Richard Strauss's father, Franz, was noted as a outspoken critic of Wagner's grandiose music, even as he played Wagner's many famous horn solos to great acclaim, often from Wagner himself no less. As a young composer Richard Strauss initially followed his father's more conservative preference for music like that of Mozart and Beethoven, but Richard soon found his own voice in the new form of the symphonic poem. His orchestral works like Aus Italien (1886); Don Juan (1888); Tod und Verklärung (1889); Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (1895); Also sprach Zarathustra (1896); Don Quixote (1897); and Ein Heldenleben (1898) proved so popular in Germany and other music capitals of Europe and America, that by the end of the 19th century Strauss was recognized by the public as Germany's premier composer. 

 

But as the new century started Strauss turned to writing operas which would establish his greatest  legacy. His early study and conducting of Wagner's numerous operas gave him a special insight to Wagner's "music of the future". Strauss expanded this model by introducing a new 20th century Modernism for musical dramas that would result in 16 operas before his death in 1949. 

 

 

 

In this second caricature postcard, Strauss is once again in conducting mode with a raised baton and serious face. The card is printed in color and it's interesting to see that his hair was shown as a sandy red. The caption reads:

Der Neurosenkavalier.
 

A note from the sender adds:
This is Richard Strauss.

The caption is a pun using the psychiatric term "neurosis", a clinical word for functional mental disorders, to poke fun at Strauss's comic opera, Der Rosenkavalier, his fifth opera, which premiered in January 1911 at the Dresden Opera House.  The story is set in the 1740s during the first years of the reign of Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. The title refers to the Rosenkavalier ~ Knight of the Rose, a gentleman who delivers the traditional silver engagement rose to a prospective bride. The plot is a bit silly not unlike other comic operas but Strauss adds a twist by assigning a female voice, a mezzo-soprano, to a young male protagonist. This kind of "trouser role" was not uncommon in opera where a woman's higher voice was sometimes required for some characters. The music in Der Rosenkavalier contains some of Strauss's most beautiful melodies which made it an immediate triumph and it remains his most popular opera.

 

The postcard was sent on 10 October 1911 from Wien, Austria, where Der Rosenkavalier was first played there in April of 1911, so this joke about Der Neurosenkavalier was still very fresh. Wien was of course the home of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) one of the founders of psychoanalysis, so the humor would be familiar to Austrians. The card was addressed to Alf. Austin Logl(?) of Hove, Sussex, England.

 

 

 Oct. 10th  Darling Papaking
have safely arrived, yesterday
morning, am living under
the  "Eye of God."—Am
very glad I came, as
Frau Dovsky, & I in talking
this morning have thought
of a splendid plan, for the
waltz.—She has gone to
interview a dueela(?), about
it today. Will write details
later.   love Teddie.

 

Some of the words are not entirely clear and I invite anyone with a better interpretation of this message to leave a comment below.  

 

 

 

 

My first photo of Richard Strauss was printed on a standard paper stock but never sent. The back has only the imprint of "Postkarte" in 14 different languages. On the front border beneath the portrait, the name of Richard Strauss is printed, but there is nothing to identify him as a composer except for an annotation written in ink below it. 

"Premiere" of "Salome" — Dresden 9.12.05. 

 

 

The note refers to the first performance of Strauss's third opera, Salome, at the Saxon State Opera in Dresden. This was the theater rebuilt on the site of an older opera house which I featured in my story from November 2013, Feuer in der Oper! Fire at the Opera House!. It's also the home of the Staatskapelle Dresden, one of Germany's great orchestras.

Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley
for the first English edition of Salomé
by Oscar Wilde (1894)
Source: Wikipedia

The story of this opera is based on the short biblical account of Salome, the daughter of Herod II and Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great and stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, the 1st-century ruler of Galilee and Perea. After Herod II was demoted in the line of succession by his father Herod the Great in favor of Herod Antipas, his wife Herodias divorced him and then married Herod Antipas, (who also needed a divorce.)  It was a messy complicated affair which John the Baptist, one of the great prophets of God, publicly condemned. This provoked Herod Antipas to have John the Baptist arrested and imprisoned. I'll let the Gospel of Mark tell the rest of the tale.

But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. For when Herodias's daughter came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests. And the king said to the girl, "Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it to you." And he vowed to her, "Whatever you ask me, I will give you, up to half of my kingdom." And she went out and said to her mother, "For what should I ask?" And she said, "The head of John the Baptist." And she came in immediately with haste to the king and asked, saying, "I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter." And the king was exceedingly sorry, but because of his oaths and his guests he did not want to break his word to her. And immediately the king sent an executioner with orders to bring John's head. He went and beheaded him in the prison and brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.

Throughout the ages this story of evil, lust, and murder inspired numerous works of art and sculpture depicting Salome with the head of John the Baptist. In 1891, the English writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) chose this frightful subject for a one-act tragedy, Salomé, which he wrote in French for Sarah Bernhardt, the leading French actress of the time. The play was to open in London in the 1892 season, but because of its biblical subject the British censors would not allow it to be performed. When it finally had its first performance in Paris in 1896, Oscar Wilde was unable to see it as he was then serving a prison sentence for illegal homosexual activity. 

Oscar Wilde's work was translated into several other languages and the English version is best known because of the sinister and erotic illustrations provided by the English artist and author, Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898). However in 1901 a German production of Wilde's play in a translation by Hedwig Lachmann became a great success in Berlin. Richard Strauss saw it there and considered its form and plot very adaptable for an opera. Within two years after its 1905 premiere in Dresden, 50 other opera houses had mounted a production of Strauss's Salome.  

 

 

Poster for 1910 Richard Strauss Festival 
München, Germany 
by Ludwig Hohlwein
Source: Wikimedia

 

   

 

 

 

 

Despite its success, the subject matter of Salome and Strauss's music made it an easy target for humorists. Though this postcard has no postmark, this cartoon of Richard Strauss holding his own head on a platter was clearly drawn around the time of Salome's premiere. Critics were initially divided on the work's merits, many confused by Strauss's dense music which required an orchestra of 120 musicians, and his challenging vocal parts that seemed devoid of any familiar melodic phrases. Staged in one act, Salome typically runs for about 100 minutes.

 

London Daily Telegraph
11 December 1905

This December 1905 review in the London Daily Telegraph gives just a small sense of how critics struggled to understand Strauss's Salome. Most reviews were quite lengthy describing both the story and the unfamiliar music. The difficulty was that Strauss was following Wagner's ideas in using complex musical leitmotifs, or short melodies with symbolic meanings, to describe the emotions and actions of his opera's characters. Some passages are distinctly associated with Salome or Jochanaan (John the Baptist), while others have a more abstract meaning. But most contemporary critics and later musicologists agree that Salome was a revolutionary work, as ingenious as Claude Debussy’s 1902 opera, Pelléas et Melisande, and as radical as Igor Stravinsky's 1913 ballet, Le Sacre du printemps / The Rite of Spring.

 

 

 

This second photo of  Richard Strauss was acquired at the same time as my first postcard. Here the photographer has asked Strauss to direct his gaze toward the camera lens which presents a more flattering portrait. Beneath the printed caption of Strauss's name is another annotation written in English by that same unknown writer.

"Salome" 2nd time  13.1.06  –  still left
the same feeling of horror  —

 

This simple remark left made by an unknown person is a chilling review. It's a pithy comment that only a real music-lover would make. One motivated enough after hearing the first performance of Salome to go back a month later for a second appraisal. I think it captures the effect Strauss intended his music to produce. Horror at the terrible consequences of Herod's depravity and Salome's sin. 

 

Playbill for the premiere of Salome by Richard Strauss
at Semper-Oper Dresden, 9 December 1905
Source: Wilkimedia

 

 

I would like to show a clip of the pivotal scene in Strauss's Salome, the infamous "Dance of the Seven Veils", but because it has a brief moment of artistic nudity, and is really only suitable for a mature audience, I'm not including it on the usual YouTube player.  Salome is portrayed in this production by Maria Ewing (1950–2022) who is also the dancer. This excerpt and the two that follow came from a live performance recorded at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London on 2 June 1992. It's about 5 minutes long, abbreviated from the full dance, and very grainy. The music surprisingly does not sound horrific like a movie soundtrack, nor does it have any oriental exoticism as might be expected, but I recommend watching it to understand the horrible bargain that Salome demands of Herod. 

 Readers who are interested in watching can click this <LINK>. 

 

  

 

What follows Salome's lascivious dance is the gruesome execution of Jochanaan (John the Baptist). His beheading takes place off (or under) stage. But when it is presented on a silver platter to Salome she sings of her ghastly lust for him. This scene I will include in this post. It is also played by Maria Ewing from the same 1992 production. It's about 10 minutes long.

 

 

 

 

Finally I add the final scene where Salome descends into madness, again from the same 1992 performance with Maria Ewing as Salome. This brings the opera to a bloodcurdling end as Strauss masterfully combines music and drama to describe the result of Salome's wicked bargain. At the end even Herod is appalled and orders his guards to kill Salome. The curtain drops as she is crushed by their shields.

 

 

 

Sadly the American soprano, Maria Ewing, died this year in early January at the age of 71. Her obituary in the Guardian pays tribute to her remarkable career, talent, and commitment to the dramatic elements of opera. 

 

 

 

 

My final souvenir postcard of Strauss is a picture of him in about his 83rd year. His curly red hair is now gone, replaced by a halo of white fuzz, and his mustache has lost its wispy wings.  But his expression still has the same serious outlook, eyes directed upward as if watching a singer take her entrance on stage. This photo was published for an Italian market as the simple caption reads:

 Riccardo Strauss 

 

The postmark is dated 6 XI 1947 from Alessandria, a city and commune in Piedmont, Italy. It was sent to a Maria Grazia Bussi of Udine in far northeast Italy with a single word message, Lelele (?) 6/11. Though I can't be certain, I do know that Strauss was in Switzerland in 1947, possibly in Lugano which is very close to the Italian border. So it's not impossible that the writer saw him at a music festival or heard his music on a radio broadcast. In any case the card demonstrates how Strauss even at age of 80+ was still a very well known musical figure. Richard Strauss died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany in the Bavarian Alps on 8 September 1949.

 

Richard Strauss had the great good fortune to live a long and productive life. His music catalog lists 298 compositions ranging from juvenilia composed in the 1870s to songs, chamber music, and concertos written in the last few years before his death. During his lifetime the artistry and originality  of his music was celebrated the world over and Richard Strauss's works will continue to give joy to future generations of musicians and listeners.

Yet the world he knew in 1905 was shattered by the Great Wars of 1914-18, and then again in 1939-45. When Salome was premiered in 1905 the opera house was the pinnacle of the musical and theatrical arts. On his death in 1949, that high peak was becoming crowded with competing mediums like film, radio, and recordings, all vying for the public's attention. The position of a so-called  "classical" composer was not the same anymore. 

These six postcards fascinate me because at the time when they were produced there was an assumption that everyone would know who Richard Strauss was. The publishers didn't think a picture of him conducting an orchestra or sitting thoughtfully at a piano was necessary to identify such a distinguished composer and conductor. That's a very unusual level of public recognition. 

Of course this kind of celebrity advertisement was not reserved for just Richard Strauss. There are many similar postcards from this early 20th century era of conductors, opera singers, and concert artists that demonstrate how publicity and self-promotion were used in the higher levels of show business. But these postcards of Richard Strauss were preserved for a reason. They honored someone's memory of a truly great artist.

1999 Stamp from Deutsche Post AG
released on the 50th anniversary of the death of Richard Strauss
Source: Wikimedia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday
where every chair is the best seat in the house.