Gloomy Strauss

A prominent personality in the music world celebrated his 60th birthday; City of Vienna made this the occasion for a gala week. Honors both frothy and substantial were recklessly poured upon the head of Richard Strauss. He was handed the keys of the city, he was created generalissimo of the combined musical forces, productions of numbers of his works--including his earliest and his latest--were arranged, he was presented with a villa erected at municipal expense in the gardens of the palace of the ex-Crown Prince.

Strauss (who seldom does what is expected of him and who shuns the obvious) was dissatisfied, unhappy. Said he:

"I am very tired. I want to go away to my beloved mountains. I am also much depressed by the illness of my son. And if you ask me about music, I can only say that there has not been much since Wagner.

"Sincerely speaking, I believe my own work superficial. It is true that new composers have much talent, but they are not strong. . . . With the exception of Eric Korngold, composer of Der Tote Stadt, I cannot mention anyone I believe in. I am now working on a libretto by Hugo von Hoff-mansthal, author of The Miracle, which suggests great possibilities."

Is this modesty, ill nature--or bad luck?

Certainly Strauss, at 60, has behind him a record of achievement that could be equalled by few. At the age of six he was already composing. His biographer Steinitzer says: "He wrote notes before he learned the letters of the alphabet." At 16 he was a prodigy of prodigies; he had written songs, piano pieces, chamber music, orchestral overtures and choral works, nearly a hundred in number. One of these, a trifle called Whipped Cream, is now being resurrected in Vienna.

His horn Concerto was written for his father, the greatest horn player of his time, who did not like it. His first important work was the tone-poem, Aus Italien, which contains a characteristic Strauss mood: "Melancholy Feelings While Basking in the Sunniest Present." Then followed his famous series of dazzling orchestral tales, path-breaking in form and harmony: Macbeth (1890), Don Juan (1888), Death and Transfiguration (1889), Till Eulenspiegels Merry Pranks (1895), Thus Spake Zarathustra (1896) and Don Quixote (1898) with its notorious sheep-bleating episode.

Strauss has written two musical autobiographies : Ein Heldenleben ("A Hero's Life"--modest title) and the

Sinfonia Domestica, which had its world premiere in Manhattan almost exactly 20 years ago. This symphony in one movement represents a day in the composer's life; it has three leading themes, representing Papa, Mama and the Baby. The Baby's theme is the noisiest, and comes to the fore particularly in a spot which represents the

Baby in his bath. His last output in this form is his Alpine Symphony and the Wedding Prelude, written for his son Franz's nuptials early this year. The Baby of the Sinfonia has grown up. Strauss is almost as famous for his operas as for his tone-poems. These are Guntram (1894), Feuersnot (1901), Salome (1905) which raised a storm and had to be suppressed when it first came to the U. S. but which now pro vides Mary Garden with one of her favorite roles, Elektra (1909) at the first production of which the composer wanted real live bulls on the stage. Der Rosenkavalier (1911) has been in the Metropolitan's repertoire, but neither the Adriadue auf Naxos nor the Josephs Legende has as yet been heard in the U. S. Although the mere mention of Strauss's name no longer, causes the uproar it used to occasion, many critics heartily disagree with the composer's own judgment as to the "superficiality" of the things he has done.