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| Richard Strauss in a signed photograph in 1948. |
Friday, 6 November 2020
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Duration: 28:58 minutes
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Metamorphosen (1945) was composed at the end of World War
II, when Richard Strauss was in his eighties. Devastated by the carpet bombing by
the allies of the majestic opera houses of Vienna, Berlin, Dresden and Munich,
Strauss composed this dirge for the excesses of war.
The study is scored for 10 violins, 5 violas, 5 cellos and 3 double bass. It is an example of Strauss’s late-Romantic style which Hitler dismissed as ‘completely second-rate.’ In the evening of his life Strauss drew inspiration from Goethe’s Metamorphoses of Plants and Metamorphoses of Animals, accepting the fact that everything changes. The study is developed from the opening bar of Beethoven’s ‘Funeral March’ - the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony Number 3 (‘Eroica’). Metamorphosen premiered in Zurich in 1946.
There is a terrifying moment around 19.33 mins. where all the music - like life - stops. Perhaps a reminder that the end is nigh when one least expects it.
While Richard Strauss’s style leans more towards the contemporary, Johann Strauss II (1825-99) - his predecessor - is more famous for his Viennese waltzes.
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