Richard Strauss, hero

Synopsis

Oscar Wilde often gets credit for the line, “But enough about me — what do you think about me?” Roughly a century ago, this portrait of the self-absorbed ego not only got laughs on the London stage, it also hit home with German concertgoers after a series of frankly autobiographical tone poems and operas by Richard Strauss had their premieres.

Take today’s date in 1899, for example. Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), received its premiere in Frankfurt, with the composer himself conducting. Strauss quoted themes from his own works in the section of the new score marked, “The hero’s works of peace,” leaving no doubt in anyone’s mind that the hero in question was Strauss himself. Depicted in carping and crabbed musical terms were “the hero’s critics,” meant to be taken as Strauss’ real-life music critics. Understandably, they were not amused, and attacked Strauss for his inflated ego and music.

Strauss, as usual, was totally unflappable and offered his own somewhat self-deprecating description of the origins of his heroic piece as follows:

“Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony is so little beloved of our conductors these days that to fulfill this need I am composing a largish tone-poem A Hero’s Life, admittedly without a funeral march, yet in E-flat, and with lots of horns, which are the yardstick of heroism.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Richard Strauss (1864-1949): Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life); Minnesota Orchestra; Eiji Oue, conductor; Reference 83

On This Day

Births

• 1891 - Spanish composer Federico Moreno Torroba, in Madrid

Deaths

• 1768 - Italian composer Nicola Porpora, 81, in Naples

• 1824 - Italian composer and violin virtuoso Giovanni Battista Viotti, 68, in London

• 1932 - British-born German composer and pianist Eugène d’Albert, 67, in Riga

Premieres

• 1793 - Haydn: Symphony No. 101 (The Clock), conducted by the composer, at the Hanover-Square Concert Rooms in London

• 1842 - Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 (Scottish), by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, with the composer conducting

• 1853 - revised version of R. Schumann: Symphony No. 4, with the Düsseldorf Municipal Orchestra, conducted by the composer. An earlier version of this symphony premiered in Leipzig in 1841 as Schumann’s Symphony No. 2, but the composer withdrew the score and composed and premiered a new Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3 before revising and reintroducing this symphony as “No. 4.”

• 1870 - Brahms: Alto Rhapsody, by the singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia, in Jena, Germany

• 1875 - Bizet: opera Carmen, in Paris at the Opéra-Comique

• 1893 - George Templeton Strong, Jr.: Symphony No. 2 (Sintram), at a public afternoon rehearsal by the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, with Anton Seidl conducting; The official premiere concert took place the following evening

• 1899 - R. Strauss: tone-poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), in Frankfurt, with Strauss conducting

• 1918 - Bartók: String Quartet No. 2, in Budapest, by the Waldbauer Quartet

• 1944 - Barber: Symphony No. 2, by the Boston Symphony, Serge Koussevitzky conducting

• 1951 - Otto Luening: Kentucky Concerto by the Louisville Orchestra, with the composer conducting

• 1959 - Cowell: Symphony No. 13 (Madras) in Madras, India

• 1963 - Menotti: television opera Labyrinth, broadcast over the NBC network

Others

• 1886 - American premiere (in a concert version) of Wagner’s Parsifal at the Old Metropolitan Opera House, by the New York Symphony and Oratorio Society conducted by the 24-year old Walter Damrosch. The soloists included soprano Marianne Brandt, who had alternated the role of Kundry with soprano Amalie Materna in the premiere staged performances of the opera in Bayreuth in July of 1882. The first fully staged presentation of Parsifal in the U.S. did not occur at the Met until Dec. 24, 1903.

• 1922 - U.S. premiere of concert version of Stravinsky’s ballet score, The Rite of Spring, in Philadelphia, with Leopold Stokowski conducting.