Voices of 1945 - Salonen, Vaughan Williams, Strauss and Stravinsky

Voices of 1945 at the Royal Festival Hall, with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra in Ralph Vaughan Williams Symphony no 6 (here in the 1950 revision), Richard Strauss Oboe Concerto in D and Igor Stravinsky Symphony in Three Movements. This continues Salonen's long series of programmes that make connections between composers and their responses to the changes in the world around them. This approach is especially important now that music is presented out of context on playlists and short clips.  Programmes like this creates juxtapositions that enhance depths of understanding, even of well known repertoire.  The underlying theme of this concert was war : all three composers reflecting on the impact of war, each in their own different way.

Vaughan Williams would not be drawn on what his Symphony no 6 might be "about", but that in itself intensifies what it might mean. Of his third symphony, he  explicitly stated that it was "wartime music", inspired by his experiences as a stretcher bearer in France. "It’s not really lambkins frisking at all, as most people take for granted". Thus the sixth has no cosy title to throw the unwary off track. The onus is on the listener to listen sensitively, and understand the piece from within. To hear music as no more than sound is to deny emotion and humanity. Salonen conducted the introduction so the brass seemed to scream in a communal wail of anguish. The quieter "pastoral" themes on strings, woodwinds and harps felt haunted, swept away in the tumult.  In the second movement tension built up steadily, the three note ostinato figure at first muffled, the cor anglais offering a moment of contrast before the relentless fusillade of brass and percussion. This  gives context to the saxophone solo in the scherzo, enhancing its strange, alien nature. Its jazziness is seductive, yet it suggests disorder, the breaking-up of safe structural certainties. The bass clarinet served as lament.  The final movement, with its ambiguous pianissimo, suggests not peace, but perhaps a numbness so great that even music cannot fully express. Unlike thethird symphony, there's no room even for wordless voice. Muted flutes in unison, rather than the fanfare of brass with which the symphony began.

Richard Strauss's  Oboe Concerto in D heard here in the 1945 version rather than Strauss's own revision from 1948, with soloist Tom Blomfield, Principal oboe of the Philharmonia. With his typical self-deprecating humour, Strauss dismissed it as "workshop excercises written to prevent the right wrist, freed from the drudgery of wielding the baton from going to sleep, permanently". Perhaps, but like Vaughan Williams, Strauss, who knew all too well about the destruction of German culture, (remember Metamorphosen) didn't want to be drawn into discussion, especially at a time when his homeland was under military occupation.  In any case, the solo part requires tour de force virtuosity, not only in terms of technique but in expressiveness. The first movement is exquisite, its elegance near filigree, an evocation of a more civilized, idealized past.  The timbre of the oboe matters, too : darker than a clarinet, richer yet more bittersweet.  In the final movement, D minor not major, suggests a subtle shift of mood, swiftly swept away by the blazing allegro at the conclusion.

Salonen's long series of Stravinsky concerts with the Philharmoniaa were outstanding. When Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements premiered in 1946 the composer wrote "Each episode is linked in my mind with a concrete impression of war.....the first movement inspired by a war film, a documentary of scorched-earth tactics in China", the second movement by the images of peasants "scratching and digging in their field" and the third "A musical reaction to newsreels I had seen of goose-stepping soldiers. The square march beat, the brass-band instrumentation, the grotesque crescendo in the tuba - all of these are related to those repellent pictures".

Even if he was later quoted (by Robert Craft) denying this, the structure of the symphony reflects turbulence and discord. The Symphony in Three Movements  operates like a kaleidoscope, of multiple aural images, fragmentizing and re-surfacing in new combinations. It's like collage, as used in the cinema where different frames are put together to create impressionistic density, images proliferating in layers and patterns. Stravinsky would have been well aware of Sergei Eisenstein. Hence the many quotes from other works, notably"primitivism" of the Rite of Spring, ritual now a force for sacrifice but not necessarily regrowth, and music planned for use in the film of Franz Werfel's novel The Song of Bernadette  whose visions give her faith, and from Beethoven's Symphony no 3, "Eroica". none of which would have been incorporated without purpose.  The inner movement is brief respite before savage, angular ostinato figues return.  One might, perhaps,  read into the piece insights into Stravinsky's predicament, looking back on his past and anxiously ahead, but the energy of this performance was such that it wholly convinced on its own terms.

Matthias Goerne - Wolf Pfitzner Wagner Strauss - Wigmore Hall

Matthias Goerne and Seong-jin Cho at the Wigmore Hall, London, in a demanding programme - Hugo Wolf Drei Gedichte von Michelangelo, Hans Pfitzner songs,  Richard Wagner Wesendonck Lieder and Lieder by Richard Strauss. From Goerne we can always expect the unexpected, presented with musical intelligence, and Wigmore Hall audiences are well up to the challenge.  Since I last heard him live, Goerne's voice has grown richer and more burnished, without losing the tenderness at the top he's so famous for.   Astonishing mastery of nuance and phrasing, helped by a new ease of line.   Ironically, as Goerne shades closer to bass baritone than befiore, he can still deliver songs usually the preserve of female voice, so convincingly that you wonder why they aren't done more often this way.

To begin, standard Goerne territory, the Drei Gedichte von Michelangelo of Hugo Wolf.  He's done these often enough in the past, but this performance was something else.   Goerne shaped the lines with such authority that the phrases seemed sculpted from solid marble. The fluidity of line suggested the sensuality of Michelangelo's work, where fingers pressed on flesh seem alive even though the moment is frozen in time.  Formidable as these songs are, they are erotic though not in "love song" fashion.  Perhaps the love object is life itself . hence the profundity of the central song Alles endet, was entstehet with its steady dignity.

The darkness in Goerne's timbre brought out the drama in the six Lieder by Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949). Though in later life, Pfitzner was to embrace Hitler and the values of the Third Reich, these songs, written between 1888/9 and 1916, represent Pfitzner while still in relative youth, heavily influenced both by Wagner and the almost Expressionist Zeitgeist of the time. A good link between Wagner, Wolf and Strauss. 

Seong-jin Cho

These Pfitzner songs are expressive, with piano parts so elaborate that they feel scored for full orchestra, though only piano is present.  Goerne's pianist was Seong-jin Cho, a young concert pianist of great flair.  He won First Prize in the 2015 Fryderyk Chopin Piano competition.  Goerne has always liked working with concert pianists  (Brendel, Andsnes, Pressler and Gage, for starters). It's a different approach to the usual relationship between singer and specialist in piano song : riskier, but very rewarding.  Cho is assertive, with a very individual personality in his playing which brings out the best in Pfitzner's settings where the piano is more flamboyant than the vocal line.  Cho's pedalling rumbles and roars : dramatic introductions that set the stage for songs that want to be music theatre, figures flying across the keyboard adding commentary on text, and postludes that make the pianist protagonist as well as partner.  Pfitzner may not get the subleties in the Heine settings Wasserfahrt op 6/6 and Es glänzt so schön die sinkende Sonne op4/1 but wow, does he paint a thrilling picture !  Quieter songs like An die Mark op 15/3 (1904), Abendrot op 24/4 (1909) and Nachts op26/2 (1916) give the singer more of a chance to sing, and Goerne shapes them sensitively, bringing out the atmosphere in the texts.

Goerne has had Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder in his repertoire for around 15 years, and his interpretation has matured. While these songs are beautiful with female voice,  Goerne connects to the deeper undercurrents.  The dangers of sexuality !  Tristan und Isolde in a villa in 19th century Switzerland, the composer literally on the run from the ,police at home.   Thus the tension in Stehe still ! much tenser and  more troubling with a male voice which resonates with muscular physicality.  The headiness of Im Triebhaus lets Goerne's tone stretch with barely suppressed excitement before sinking into the pain of Schmerzen.  Goerne has been singing King Marke in concert, which added frisson given the context behind the Wesendonck Lieder.  Jonas Kaufmann sings these songs too, but the more obvious Tristan connection isn't nearly as disturbing as the idea of Marke or Otto Wesendonck watching what was going on.

Four songs by Richard Strauss - Traum durch die Dämerung op29/1 , Morgen ! op27/4,  Ruhe meine Seele! op 27/1 and Freundliche Vision op 48/1 (1900) were followed by Im Abdendrot from Vier letzte Lieder, forming an arc between early Strauss and Strauss nearing death, looking back on the past.  Though these songs are usually - but not exclusively - heard with female voice, they transpose well enough. In any case the emotions they deal with are universal, which a singer as good s Goerne has no trouble expressing whatsoever.  As so often in Goerne's ingenious programmes, this selection formed a mini-cycle.  The shadows of twilight give way to sleep and to dreams, refreshing the soul, for dawn and a vision of hope.  As the last notes of Freundliche Vision faded away, Im Abdendrot  returned us full cycle, to sunset.  

Chailly Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra - Strauss Zarathustra, Metamorphosen and Till Eulenspeigel

Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra's Strauss series at the Barbican, London, was built around the theme "Richard Strauss as Storyteller".  At first that might seem odd, for surely a composer who wrote operas must "tell stories" ? But the theme was well chosen. Operas are by no means the only way in which abstract music can form  narrative story-telling.  Of course tone poems can be enjoyed for themselves as abstract music, but they attract value-added depth when appreciated with an awareness of their literary, folkloric and philosophic inspiration. Significantly, Strauss didn't write symphonies as such, but more heterodox, free-wheeling hybrids.

In the first concert in this series  (read my review here),  Chailly focused on early Strauss, such as Don Juan, popular because it's theatrical but undemanding, and Ein Heldenleben which is often misunderstood because it satirizes the very idea of bombastic heroism, typified by the cult of Bayreuth. Ein Heldenleben needs to be heard in context with Guntram, Feuersnot and even Salomé. Born into Munich music circles, Strauss could connect to a world which didn't deify Wagner. While Mahler could re-invent the symphony, and Hugo Wolf could become "The Wagner of the Lied", Strauss did his own thing.

Thus Macbeth  (Op 23 1886-8) opened the second concert. Written when Strauss was in his very early 20's it's interesting because the subject is so dramatic that it almost begs operatic treatment. Yet Strauss avoids the obvious, using sounds instead of words. He assumed his listeners knew Shakespeare well  enough that they could figure the plot out for themselves.  Thus, atmospheric murmurings and screams of violent brass. Witchcraft, murder and cosmic guilt, wrapped up with vaguely "Scottish" sounds  which reference the fascination the Highlands held for 19th century middle Europe, from Beethoven to Donizetti to Verdi.  Macbeth gave its audience the frisson horror movies would give later generations. It's over the top, but therein lies its charm. The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra laid on the atmosphere in gorgeous technicolour, and, in the process, highlighted Strauss's irreverent sense of humour.

A brief respite with Mozart Violin Concerto no 3 in G major, with Christian Tetzlaff as soloist. It's not a showpiece stunner but served to divide Macbeth from the altogether more demonic extremes of Also sprach Zarathustra.  Throughout this series, Chailly placed Mozart in counterpoint to Strauss, rather than the perhaps more obvious Liszt, but it kept the focus on Strauss.

Also sprach Zarathustra (Op  30 1896) is so ubiquitous that every knows it from TV ads, movies and (apparently) gaming sound effects. But when a band like the Leipzigers play , you forget the clichés and hear the music as shocking as it might have felt when it was new and unknown. The first bars rumbled with menace. The famous fanfare whipped across the sound space. Definitely the "shock of the new", still startling after 120 years. The piece unfolds in three sections, like scenes in a narrative. Friedrich Nietszche's Also sprach Zarathustra was still fairly new, and notorious., Ideas like "God is Dead" and "Between Good and Evil" still have the power to shock.  Cinematic treatment doesn't do justice to this music nor to the radical ideas behind it. Chailly conducted to bring out the savage raw edges and almost psychotic waywardness, absolutely essential when one remembers where Nietzschean values, or their misappropriation, would lead. There are connections also to Wagner. Nietzsche lost his illusions about Wagner fairly early on, and Wagner had no qualms about denigrating him. So much for heroism and bombastic barrage. An understanding of Strauss's music reveals that Strauss had no delusions, either. 

An orchestra like the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester plays with such lustrous beauty that they brought out the deep irony in the dance sections. These dances aren't pastoral, but poisoned, possibly a reference to the cult of the Volk that would appeal to those who misused the Romantiker fascination with an idealized German past. Exquisitely beautiful playing from the Leipziger's first violin, graceful, enticing yet sinister, reminiscent of the Hero theme in Ein Heldenleben.  The idea of dance pervades Strauss's music. Salomé dances to trap John the Baptist (and her parents). Elektra dances herself to death after Orestes chops us their parents. Even in Der Rosenkavalier, we can detect the formality of dance in the elegant stratagems which the Marschallin and Octavian devise to trap the brutish Baron Ochs. Poise but purpose, as this wonderfully intelligent performances demonstrated.

For their final concert, Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra chose Tod und Verklärung, Metamorphosen and Till Eulenspeigel, with Mozart Clarinet Concerto K 662 (Martin Fröst).  Tod und Verklärung (Op 24 1888) is a young composer's meditation on death, not so much a farewell but an intuition of what might come through transfiguration. Pairing it with Strauss's late masterpiece Metamorphosen was poignant. By 1944, Strauss could see the dangers Nietszche warned of come to fruition. The Germany he believed in was being destroyed, not just by bombs but by bombastic fake heroism - the Triumph of the Will.  This time perhaps Strauss could not think transfiguration.  In a way, I am glad that, at the last minute, I couldn't get to the concert because this daring  juxtaposition would have been overwhelming. It would have been so depressing, in fact, that it would not have been wise to end the series, and Chailly's tenure, on such a sad note. Ending, instead with Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Op 24, 1895),  brought the Chailly/Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra series back to the beginning, like an elegant rondo.  Till Eulenspiegel was a prankster, a medieval Fool who overturns conventional power and order with cheeky, irreverent good humour  We're right back into the world of Ein Heldenleben, where Strauss undermines the very idea of heroism, power and authority.

Florian Boesch Wigmore Hall - Liszt Strauss revelations

Any Florian Boesch and Malcolm Martineau performance is superb, but this Wigmore Hall recital surprised, too.  Boesch's Schubert is wonderful, but this time, it was his Liszt and Strauss songs that stood out. This year at the Wigmore Hall, we've heard a lot of Liszt and a lot of Richard Strauss everywhere, establishing high standards, but this was special.


In Lieder, it's not enough just to sing well. A true Lieder artist conveys meaning not only through words but through the way the music connects to ideas. Composers often set poets who were contemporary or near contemporary. Lieder was an art form for  people who were fairly well read and interested in intellectual discourse. Boesch is maturing beautifully. His lower register has a rich, burnished sheen, enhancing the natural agility in his voice. Yet what makes Boesch, for Lieder specialists, the most exciting singer of his generation is the way he combines musical instincts with intelligence.

Liszt's Lieder are the songs of a composer whose true voice lives in the piano. Texts matter, but though they don't fly with the effortlerss glory of Schubert and Schumann. Boesch's commitment to meaning enhances balance. In Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam (S309/1, c 1855) the piano's sparkling, twinkling figures describe snowfall and starlight, a lovely image. For Liszt, though, the atmosphere is magic, and we marvel in its beauty. Heine's poem, however, is ironic.  The spruce is alone, dissociated from its environment, and dreams of a palm tree "fern im Morgenland". How can this be? The unsentimental firmness of Boesch's delivery reminds us that this isn't a "nature" song.
With hardly a pause, Boesch and Martineau began Es muß ein Wunderbares sein (S34 1857). (What a miracle it must be, when two souls are entwined by love.) Oskar von Redwitz, the poet, doesn't  have Heine's acerbic bite, but the two songs enhance each other when done as a pair. Like the image of the trees! Boesch and Martineau followed with O Lieb'; so lang du lieben kannst (S298/2 1843-50, Ferdinand Freiligrath).Th3 (O Love, as long as you are able) Liszt's lilting, circular figures suggest continuity, but Boesch doesn't make the pain in the last strophe "Bald ist ein bõsesWortgesat! O gott ! " (pause) "es war bõs gemeint!" (an even more pained pause) "Der ander aber geht und klagt". Boesch sings the word "klagt" so the hard consonants tear, as if the lover's heart is being ripped. The pretty postlude now seems to emphasize the lover's desolation.

Loreley, (S273/11841) is thus enhanced. "Ich weiss nicht, was so esbedeuten" writes Heine "dass ich so traurig bin", when he describes the Lorelei combing her lovely hair with a golden comb, luring boatmen to their deaths. The delicacy of Boesch's singing echoed the maiden's beauty, and made me, at least, wonder if she. too, might be feeling pain: perhaps she doesn't want to kill,perhaps she's doomed, too, if she dreams of love.  In Vergiftet sind mein Lieder (S289/1844-9, Heine) (My songs are poisoned), the poet blames his bitterness on his lover who poured poison into his "blühende Leben". Again, the imagery of doomed youth and nature. "Serpents dwell in my heart", the poem continues "und dich, Geliebte mein". The poem is "poisoned" but the beauty of Boesch's singing emphasized the love that inspired it. Boesch and Martineau ended with Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh' (S306/2 1859, Goethe). The Romantiker turmoil of the earlier songs dissolves into Goethe's image of stillness."warte nur, waste nur, Ruhest du auch".  Not so much rest, as death.  For an encore, Boesch sang Schubert's setting of the same poem.  "So I don't have to learn the same words twice", he said with a grin. Liszt's setting is more solemn than Schubert's. but the words "warte nur" are repeated so often, even accompanied by the tolling of "bells" in the piano part, that the effect is depersonalized. Schubert's Wandrers Nachtlied (D768) is more subtle, more magical,and more mysterious. With this unusual combination, Boesch,and Martineau made a case for Liszt as a composer of true Lieder in the Romantic tradition, yet also made us appreciate Liszt as a pianist who wrote art song.

For their selection of songs by Richard Strauss, Boesch and Martineau restricted themselves to early works from the period 1885-9, with one song from his relative maturity, four years later. Again, heard together, the songs form an unusual set with insight into the development of Strauss as composer of Lieder, as opposed to composer of sublime art songs. Adolphe Friedrich von Schack (1815-94)  was a pillar of Munich's artistic establishment. In Breit' über mein Haupt (op 19/2 1888), a beauty lets her dark hair fall over the face of her lover and blocks out the world beyond. Consider the similarities between Schack's poem and Paul Heyse's translation of the Spanish poem, In dem Schatten meinen Locken, set by Brahms and by Hugo Wolf at almost the same time as Strauss set von Schack. Both poets were fascinated by the East and the dreams it symbolized. One can hear what a young Münchener like Strauss would have responded to. This was the era from which the Munich Secesion evolved, with its ethos of exoticism, modernity and freedom. In this song, perhaps one can think ahead to Strauss's collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

Boesch and Martineau performed two songs to poems by Hermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg (1812-64), Die Nacht (op 10/3 ) and Allerseelen (op 10/8, 1885). Boesch sang Die Nacht with refinement and brought elegant poise to Allerseelen. Martineau's gentle playing evoked the "duftenden Reseden", the last flowers of summer , and the image of secret, silent glances, amplified by Boesch's immaculate phrasing and hushed tones.  In contrast, Boesch and Martineau presented two other songs, All' mein Gedanlen (op 21/1 1889 Felix Dahn) and Ruhe meine Seele! (op 27/1, 1894, Karl Henkell). Strictly speaking All' mein Gedanlen isn't a "new" song but a  Minnelied first published in the Lochamer Liederbuch of 1460. Like the more famous version by Johannes Brahms in  his 49 Volkslieder (1994), Strauss's version respects the pure, clean lines. Boesch can do simplicity as well as richness.

Strauss's Ruhe, mein  Seele (op 27/1 1894, Karl Henkell) is so lovely that it could rank with Wolf, yet is so ahead of its time that we can hear in it the germ of later Strauss. It could be a companion  piece to Vier letzte Lieder both in subject and the maturity of its style. A few discreet but emphatic chords from the piano from whence the voice part emerges. The vocal phrases are short, six or eight measures in each line, the piano part equally restrained.  Martineau's piano sang short, sparkling figures, describing the sunshine which steals through the dark canopy of leaves in the silent wood, where "nicht ein Lüftchen regt sich leise". In this song. a singer can't hide. Boesch sang with absolute sincerity, each word clear and emotionally direct.

Boesch and Martineau completed their recital with a selection of Schubert Lieder, exquisiitely and intelligently performed, as always. But the real surprises of the evening were the Liszt and Strauss sets, very well chosen and presented, which revealed so much about the composers and their niche in the genre. 

This article also appears in Opera Today

Richard Strauss Remembered - BBC classic

"Our future lies in art, especially in music. In times when spiritual goods are rarer than material ones, and egotism, envy and hatred govern the world, music will do much to re-establish love among mankind" - Richard Strauss. born 150 years ago today.

How the world has changed since Richard Strauss was born !  Through his music we might come to know the man he was and how he coped with the horrors of what happened around him, for better or worse. Today I have been watching Peter Adams's documentary Richard Strauss Remembered. It's a remarkable film. We see most of the extant film footage of the composer and also clips from films and stills of early performances - including Feuersnot.  There's also footage from Robert Wierne's 1926 silent Der Rosenkavalier (read more here)  Members of Strauss's immediate family came together with Alice, his secretary, daughter-in-law and devoted champion. They are seen in Strauss's home in the Bavarian Alps, decorated with elk and deer horns, preserved as it was in his time. It must have been quite an occasion. The musical clips are archive classics, and the script is well written.  As the film ends, we see Strauss in his garden, and hear Kirsten Flagstad sing Im Abendrot as the camera pans on the mountains Strauss loved so dearly.

This film was made for the BBC in 1984. It's a wonderful example of the high-quality work the BBC produced in those days, when the government supported the pursuit of excellence.  Hopefully, the BBC will be able to release it again this anniversary year as a public service. The copy I watched has serious sound problems. Richard Strauss remembered is an exceptional  film because it touches on the value of the arts in difficult times, and on personal integrity. On the other hand, maybe the film is too dangerous given present political pressures.  Goebbels couldn't shut Strauss down, so let's hope "egotism, envy and hatred" don't do so now.

Richard Strauss Feuersnot - streaming from Munich

Richard Strauss's Feuersnots are breaking out all over! Above a still from the production in January at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo (read more HERE) . There's another new production in June at the Volksoper, Vienna, which should be interesting, too. There was a concert performance in December in New York conducted by Leon Botstein. Botstein's reputation is built on performing works unknown to his audiences, but his performances are so leaden that he does music great disservice. It's not as if recordings aren't available. Better then to listen to the concert performance of Strauss's Feuersnot from Munich, currently streamed on BR Rundfunk.  Ulf Schirmer conducts the Münchner Rundfunkorchester. 

Presumably some of the Munich singers are Bavarian,  because some of the text in in Strauss's native dialect, not High German. That's important to meaning, as Strauss is poking fun at the po-faced Bayreuth cult promoted by Cosima Wagner, whose deadly grip on the Wagner legacy did more to parody Wagner than any cheeky Strauss skit. When Feuersnot premiered in 1901, it bombed. Audiences were still too enthralled by the Cosima cult to appreciate just how funny Feuersnot can be. Strauss lays the satire on thick, but with pungent verve. Great "Wagnerian" sweeps of sound, exaggerated til they almost break the bounds of taste. Hyper-fervid emotionalism, not in the noble service of Heiligen Deutschen Kunst but in the service of Bayreuth fanaticism. Hitler swallowed the authoritarianism of Bayreuth. It possibly enflamed  his sense of divine right. Strauss's satire is a timely reminder that loving Wagner doesn't necessarily lead to fascism.

In Feuersnot, a provincial town  not so different from Nürnberg is gathered on Midsummer's Eve (Johannisnacht) but not to celebrate poetry and song. The children are gathering wood for some kind of pagan conflagration, which involves the worship of fire. Sweet, innocent children's voices, as perky as  dancing flames: but what do these flames signify? Kunrad the alchemist lets the townsfolk chop his house down to feed the bonfire: destruction rather than creative art. He loves the Mayor's daughter Diemut a hoch dramatisch soprano. Together they jump over the flames and he kisses her. But Diemut and her father play devious tricks. Kunrad is cast outside, like his former master who was driven for practising the dark arts. Diemut has Kunrad humiliated by being suspended in a basket, strung from the rafters, in front of the whole town. He uses his magic to create a "fire famine" dousing all the fires in town until a hot-blooded virgin surrenders to him. So Diemut, who does lust for Kunrad, does the deed, vividly illustrated in the orchestra. Suddenly all the fires are ignited and the town glows with unnatural brightness.

Strauss parodies not only Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg but also Tristan und Isolde, numerous different themes in Die Ring des Nibelungen and even Liebesverbot.  There's nothing timid about Feuersnot.  Diemut has the hots for Kunrad, the local "bad boy" but uses her social status to play power games with him. Even in 1901, Strauss was warning about fanatics who fuel flames to get what they want. So enjoy Feuersnot for the satire it is, and appreciate Ariadne auf Naxos in the same spirit. Please read my analysis of the Glyndebourne Ariadne auf Naxos HERE which further explains Strauss's subversive thoughts on Wagner and on the making of opera. Strauss, in his self-depreciating cheerfulness, put himself down, but he's a much more interesting composer than many appreciate.