Richard Strauss: A Master Musicians Biography (Master Musicians (Schirmer)) [Hardcover]

Michael Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0028645170 | ISBN-13: 978-0028645179 | Publication Date: January 1996

Richard Strauss's long life spanned nearly a century, from the consolidation of Wagner's fame in the 1860s to the age of post-serialism and the dawn of electronics when he died in 1949. For 79 of his 85 years he composed - songs, chamber music, a series of brilliant tone-poems, and the great ballets and operas which he created for the legendary stars of Dresden and Vienna. He was also one of the outstanding conductors of his time, dircting opera companies in Weimar, Munich, Berlin, and Vienna. In his youth, Strauss was regarded as the leader of the dissonant avant-garde, but by middle age his refusal to follow in the footsteps of Schoenberg and the modernists led to his being written of as a reactionary. Michael Kennedy challenges this verdict, regarding him as an important figure in the history of the last hundred years of music, misrepresented and misunderstood, particularly in his relationship with the Third Reich, and he contradicts the received opinion that Strauss's genius declined after Der Rosenkavalier. In this new edition, Kennedy has considerably expanded both the biographical section and his discussion of Strauss's music.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There are few composers whose critical stock has roller-coastered as dramatically as that of Richard Strauss, both during his lifetime and in the five decades since his death in 1949. Once considered a dangerous firebrand of the avant-garde--his early masterpiece Salome was given the equivalent of an X rating--Strauss remained an exceedingly prolific composer throughout his long career, yet lived to be "written off as an extinct volcano." The painful story of his involvement with the Third Reich further cast a pall over his final years. But in the past two decades, a gradual reassessment has been underway--along with a recuperation of his neglected later works--and the field is ripe for a critically insightful overview of Strauss's achievement.

Such is the goal of Michael Kennedy, a longtime advocate of Strauss, in his new biography, Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma. Kennedy, the Sunday Telegraph's music critic and author of several other musical biographies--including an earlier study of the composer as well as illuminating articles and CD booklets on his music--here undertakes to penetrate the contradictions and see the man whole. Through his impressive access to diaries, letters, and living relatives, he posits an underlying consistency of attitude that made "art the reality in [Strauss's] life." The central enigma about the composer that fascinates Kennedy is the "disparity between man and musician," the paradox that this fundamentally aloof and reserved person, dedicated to bourgeois stability, could produce music of such overpowering passion.

While steering clear of Freudian reductionism, Kennedy reveals the crucial significance of Strauss's mother's nervous instability--she was eventually committed to various sanatoriums--and the centrality of the work ethic inherited from his father. The result was to make music "Strauss's means of escape ... and in much of his music he wore a mask." Yet for all his aloofness, Strauss "let [the mask] slip"--another aspect of the enigma surrounding him--in such compositions as Don Quixote ("the most profound" of his orchestral works) or the pervasively autobiographical Sinfonia Domestica, Intermezzo, and Capriccio, which Kennedy counts as Strauss's greatest achievement for the lyrical stage.

Kennedy is particularly persuasive in his high estimation of the post-Rosenkavalier output and the undiminished quest for artistic innovation that they continued to exemplify--above all in Strauss's development of a fluently conversational style in his operas. Although commentary on individual works involves generally concise summations, many observations sparkle with insight, and Kennedy continually sheds light on neglected gems among Strauss's output. The rapport with Hofmannsthal and his other librettists is admirably clarified, and the remarkably well-read Strauss emerges as a more imposingly intellectual figure, steeped in literature and philosophy, than he is usually depicted. We learn of his obsession with the card game skat and of his disdainful attitude toward the new medium of film. Kennedy similarly demystifies much of the received opinion that has developed around the composer, particularly in his level-headed portrait of his wife, Pauline. The fundamental happiness of their lifelong relationship emerges as a context indispensable to Strauss's creative focus.

Kennedy devotes a significant portion of the book to the composer's position as president of the Reich Music Chamber and subsequent fall from grace both with the Nazis and in world opinion. Here the author aims to offer perspective by carefully detailing the facts and documentary evidence from the time. In his view, Strauss becomes a "tragic figure, symbolising the struggle to preserve beauty and style in Western European culture" against emerging barbarism. Yet, as throughout the book, Kennedy's abiding sympathy with Strauss at times veers close to a kind of special pleading that invites skepticism. For all that, his style is admirably lucid, and his biography largely succeeds in pointing to a greatness that "has not yet been fully understood and discovered." --Thomas May --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Review

"Peppered with telling anecdotes and delightful examples of Strauss's abundant humor...Kennedy is a thoughtful, clear, and careful writer....[his] book is a model of authorial and editorial diligence. It includes three very helpful appendices: a calandar that lists important events in the world of music at every stage of Stauss's life, a detailed catalog of his works, and a who's who of key figures in his career."--Opera Quarterly

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 237 pages
• Publisher: Schirmer Books (January 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028645170
• ISBN-13: 978-0028645179
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,315,372 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best compact introduction to Richard Strauss, April 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Richard Strauss: A Master Musicians Biography (Master Musicians (Schirmer)) (Hardcover)

Studies of Richard Strauss have a tendency to hover between enthusiasm and mealy-mouthed criticism. Or else they are so voluminous (multiple volumes) that only the most serious scholar or eager enthusiast can imagine plowing through them. Michael Kennedy's volume has two great strengths that place it at the top of the class when it comes to finding a good introduction to Strauss: It is compact, yet invitingly enthusiastic. Kennedy has the knack of highlighting precisely the unique strengths of each different work. Perhaps this is not so rare when he speaks of the leading masterpieces that others praise as well. But it is his special gift that he makes the reader want to listen to those works that have not been blessed with extreme popularity. All of them offer something that sounds interesting and inviting to the music-lover. Not only is it a superb guide to Richard Strauss; I think this book is a veritable model for the way that the non-technical music lover should be introduced to an important composer.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An eye and ear opener - why did it take this long?, August 3, 2002

By 

William J. Finn "wjf88" (Sarasota Florida) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma (Hardcover)

I have grown up reading Michael Kennedy's biographies of such great English composers as Vaughan-Williams and Edward Elgar. So I eagerly picked-up his latest biography of Richard Strauss partly because of what I deemed to be Kennedy's objective approach to his subjects, and also because Strauss seemed to be a deeply held secret not meant to be shared with us ordinary listeners (in other words, there wasn't much else available).

Kennedy seems to have slightly more passion for Strauss it turns out than for RVW or Elgar, or at least enough moxy to blow the cover off some well established sacred cows. I know that I was not expecting to read exactly what I read.

If you are even vaguely interested in the music of Strauss or even if you are simply intereted in the history of Germany from 1900 to 1950, then this is a very interesting read.

Very well done!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Strauss enthusiasts, June 19, 2008

By 

P. Mossel (Delaware) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma (Hardcover)

It is an excellent biography of Richard Strauss, well written and employing up-to-date scholarship on the great composer. It portrays not only Strauss' life and historical milieu, but also addresses inaccurate views of his political situation during Hitler's Third Reich, which have unfairly colored his reputation. The book would be an essential tool in fully understanding and appreciating this musical genius.