Ravinia 2026 Issue 3

Another Meiningen acquaintance wielded even greater influence over Strauss’s intellectual and artistic development: Alexander Ritter. A modestly successful violinist, conductor, and composer, Ritter distinguished himself through a fanatical devotion to Wagner (whose niece, Franziska, he had married) and his disciples, even more ardently after Wagner’s death in 1883. His passionate belief in the metaphysical na- ture of music—that music conveys ideas beyond sound and serves a transcendent purpose—ini- tially attracted Strauss. “In music with no poet- ic content, I can find nothing new,” the young composer-conductor declared when asked to assess one of Brahms’s violin sonatas. Within the realm of orchestral music, Ritter dis- played a special fondness for the symphonic po- ems of Franz Liszt, one of Wagner’s “musicians of the future.” Liszt composed 12 symphonic po- ems while in Weimar, each a single-movement programmatic work that drew its substance and structure from extramusical inspiration. Strauss viewed these as the only viable approach to the post-Beethovenian symphony. Not long after moving to Munich in September 1886 to become third conductor of the Hofoper, he adopted the Lisztian model with the creation of his first “tone poem,” Aus Italien ( From Italy ), op. 16, inspired by his summer vacation in the south. Ritter followed Strauss toMunich and continued to engage him in philosophical conversation, but the younger musician already had begun to follow an alternative view of human existence, in which metaphysical longing is a human flaw to be constantly overcome, religion is corrupt, individuals succeed through their own labors, and society is hierarchical rather than demo- cratic—delivered by the late, post-Wagnerian writings of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). This philosophy shaped Strauss’s late tone po- ems: not only Thus Spoke Zarathustra , which shares its title with Nietzsche’s novel (1883–85), but aspects of Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks , op. 28; Don Quixote , op. 35; Ein Heldenleben ( A Hero’s Life ), op. 40; and An Alpine Symphony . An Alpine Symphony became a highly atypical project due to its extended compositional pro- cess and extensive conceptual shifts. Strauss be- gan conceiving a new tone poem sometime in 1899. On January 28, 1900, he wrote to his par- ents from Berlin, where he was conducting at the Staatsoper, that a thought was “slumbering at the bottom of [my] breast, which begins with a sunrise in Switzerland, otherwise there is only an idea (‘an artist’s love-tragedy’) and a couple themes.” The “artist” was Karl Stauffer-Bern, a Swiss painter, engraver, and sculptor, who fell in love with Lydia Welti-Escher, the daughter of politician and railroad baron Alfred Escher and wife of insurance pioneer Friedrich Emil Welti. When their affair became known, Lydia was confined to a psychiatric hospital and Karl re- ceived jail time on charges of sexual assault. Both eventually earned their releases. Lydia filed for and received a divorce. Karl suffered a ner- vous breakdown and was institutionalized. Fol- lowing his discharge, Karl attempted suicide by gunshot to the heart but missed his target. In January 1891, he succumbed to an overdose of sleeping medicine. Lydia took her own life the following December.. Parallels with Nietzsche’s biography, specifically the mental breakdown, did not go unnoticed. Strauss intermittently pursued the Künstlertra- godie (artist tragedy) program over the next two years. On July 3, 1900, Strauss announced the first sketch of music to accompany “der Son- nenaufgang” (the sunrise). Many months later, in a letter to his parents (April 20, 1902), he re- ported that “I’m now slowly starting to com- pose a bit again: little-by-little I’m working on a ballade for soloists and orchestra (‘Taillefer’ by Uhland) just as little-by-little a great symphonic poem.” At this time, Strauss sketched themes identified as “Mann” (man = Karl) and “Weib” (wife = Lydia). Work on this project ceased for seven years, largely because Strauss’s focus shifted to the operas Salome and Elektra . When he resumed orchestral composition in 1910, the program and structure had undergone major transfor- mations in his imagination. The characters of Karl and Lydia vanished, their place taken by an unnamed protagonist on a mountainous quest. Strauss also replaced the two-part structure of the “artist tragedy” with a four-movement sym- phonic form: “night, sunrise, mountain climb,” “rustic joy,” “dreams and ghosts,” and “freedom through work” or “freedom through nature.” Thus, the aspects of Nietzsche that appealed most to Strauss—work and nature—gained clar- ity in this conception. The death of Gustav Mahler on May 18, 1911, provided further, tragic motivation for Strauss’s Richard Strauss An Alpine Symphony . The relationship between Mahler and Strauss, the leading composer-con- ductors of their generation, could be described as an often-precarious combination of friend- ship and rivalry. Strauss found the aesthetic gulf between Mahler’s metaphysical works and his own style impossibly wide. Still, in a letter to Mahler just one week before his colleague’s death, Strauss promised to revisit the Third Symphony for future performance. As Strauss’s new symphonic work took shape as a memorial to Mahler, it narrowed in scope, first reducing to two movements and ultimately set- tling into the single-movement format of a tone poem. Strauss sharpened the Nietzschean asso- ciations in a diary entry written the morning af- ter Mahler’s death: “I want to call my Alpensinfo- nie ‘The Antichrist’ [the name of Nietzsche’s 1895 book], as there is: moral purification through one’s own strength, liberation through work, worship of the eternally glorious nature.” Over the next four years, Strauss fleshed out a monumental tone poem in 22 continuous sections, each corresponding to a specific ep- isode during a climb to the summit of an Al- pine peak and back, from pre-dawn to dusk. Musical allusions to Mahler’s Sixth Sympho- ny—an enigmatic, non-programmatic work that Strauss considered representative of the genuine Mahler—appear variously in the use of cowbells, birdcalls, and “nature” music. Beethoven’s “Pas- toral” Symphony is present, in spirit at least, in the brook, the storm, and subsequent calm. The theme of Der Anstieg (The Ascent) is a clever evocation of the coda from the final movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Self-referenc- es also arise, as Strauss incorporated materials from his early Symphony in F minor, the opera Guntram (with its hints of Wagner), the tone poem Thus Spoke Zarathustra , and the song An- betung (Worship), op. 36, no. 4. Transforming the piano draft into a large sym- phonic score occupied Strauss for three months, beginning on November 1, 1914. “At last, I have learned to orchestrate,” declared the composer during rehearsals for the world premiere in Ber- lin. Strauss conducted the first performance of An Alpine Symphony at the Königliche Dresden- er Hofkapelle on October 28, 1915. Three weeks later, Strauss confessed to his opera librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, that “it really is good!” –Program notes © 2026 Todd E. Sullivan KLAUSMÄKELÄ For Klaus Mäkelä’s biography, see page 81. RAVINIAMAGAZINE • AUGUST 3 – AUGUST 16 , 2026 76