Richard Strauss - Hardcover

Boyden, Matthew

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 155553418X ISBN 13: 9781555534189

Publisher: Northeastern University Press, 1999

Synopsis

One of Germany's most successful and popular composers, Richard Strauss (1864-1949) enjoyed huge celebrity, vast wealth, and unequaled adulation during his lifetime. His masterful tone poems and operas, including Der Rosenkavalier, Salome, and Elektra, form a musical legacy that endures today. Yet Strauss was an enigmatic figure-an artistic genius who was consumed with a passion to protect the prosperity and security of his own interests.

In this intriguing biography, Matthew Boyden unveils the man behind the music, painting in masterful fashion a portrait of Strauss's life and work against the backdrop of his culture and turbulent times. Boyden examines his upbringing, his education, the influence of his domineering father and other mentors, and his loving but tempestuous relationship with his wife, soprano Pauline de Ahna.

This compelling volume provides a frank discussion of his open anti-Semitism at the Bayreuth Festival and delves into his active and willing collaboration with Adolph Hitler and the Nazi regime, fully exploring why and in which ways Strauss allied himself with the Third Reich.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Richard Strauss remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of music. Though he is now accepted as one of the finest of all orchestral composers, his reputation remains dogged by charges of career opportunism, sensationalism, and Nazi collaboration. This book places Strauss's life in the context of German history, revealing the paradoxes that lay beneath his public persona, and discussing his work in the light of personal, artistic and literary influences. This text is part of the 20th-century composers series, examining composers in a biographical context, and offering a comprehensive study of key figures in the creation of 20th-century music. None of the books in the series presume a knowledge of specialized terms or musical notation. Each book in the series features a list of works, a bibliography, and a discography.

About the Author:

Matthew Boyden is a record producer and writer on music. He was editor of the classical record magazine CD Review and is the author of Rough Guide to Opera. He lives in Cornwall, England.

About this edition

• Publisher: Northeastern University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 155553418X
• ISBN 13: 9781555534189
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448