Richard Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra
Also sprach Zarathustra
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
piccolo, 3 flutes, 3 oboes, English horn, E-flat clarinet, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, 2 tubas, timpani, percussion, organ, 2 harps, strings
Composed 1896. First performance: 27 November 1869, Frankfurt, Germany. Frankfurter Museums-Orchester cond. Richard Strauss.
I. Introduction (Sunrise)
II. Of the Backworldsmen
III. Of the Great Yearning
IV. Of Joys and Passions
V. Dirge
VI. Of Science
VII. The Convalescent
VIII. The Dance Song
IX. Song of the Night Wanderer
When Zarathustra was 30 years old, he left his home and went into the mountains. Here he enjoyed meditation and solitude for ten years… But at last his heart changed, and one morning, he rose with the dawn and spoke to the sun…
“Look! I am tired of my wisdom, like a bee who has collected too much honey. I want to give and share until the wise become glad of their folly and the poor of their wealth… This cup yearns to empty itself again, and Zarathustra yearns to be human again.”
And so Zarathustra began his descent.
Thus begins Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzche’s groundbreaking philosophical novel. And thus— with the most iconic sunrise in musical history— begins Richard Strauss’ musical accompaniment to Zarathustra’s quest.
When Strauss began his tone poem, he deliberately avoided any attempt to convert Nietzche’s philosophy into music. Instead, he selected several episodes from the text and drew upon them to create a powerfully atmospheric sonic journey. He envisioned a work filled with hope, celebrating a bright future for the human race— its early subtitle was “Symphonic Optimism in fin de siècle form, dedicated to the 20th century”.
Taking his cue from Nietzsche’s text, the tone poem seeks a way to bring humanity into harmony with nature. This is portrayed throughout the piece by juxtaposing the key of C major (symbolizing nature and the universe) against B major (humanity and society). These two scales, though adjacent, have only two notes in common— the least possible between any two major keys. In this dissonance lies the challenge of bringing them together in unity.
Our journey begins with the famous “Sunrise” fanfare (in C, of course— nature!). Zarathustra declares his purpose and descends the mountain, where he encounters the “Backworldsmen”. This word— just as strange in Nietzsche’s German (“Hinterweltlern”) as it is in English— is a clever pun. A “Hinterwäldler” is a “backwoodsman” (a hick), and the “Hinterwelt” is the “world behind” (the supernatural). In this hymnlike passage, Zarathustra encounters those who focus so intently on the afterlife that they neglect to live their lives in this world.
He finds this blind belief unfulfilling, and a heartfelt violin solo reveals the Great Longing. An embrace of Joys and Passions follow, but these only lead him to the Dirge. In this encounter with mortality, a desire for rational meaning takes hold.
The music has become increasingly chromatic as Zarathustra descends into the world of man, growing more distant from the purity of the C major sunrise. When he embraces Science, the orchestra takes up a fugue (that most intellectual of musical forms) in which the melody is constructed from all twelve notes of the chromatic scale. This emphasis on logic proves just as unsatisfying, and our hero falls into despair. As the Convalescent Zarathustra recovers, he finds beauty in the eternal cycles of life, and his joy at this realization grows into a Dance Song.
This Viennese waltz grows until it is bursting with life, but it is brought to a close as twelve chimes announce the arrival of midnight. The Song of the Night Wanderer makes one final quiet attempt to reconcile the paradox of man’s place within the universe, but the piece ends with a high B major chord suspended over C major in the bass, the mystery unresolved.
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