Oboe Concerto
STRAUSS 1864-1949
Richard Strauss will probably always occupy a precarious position in the history of Western music. This is because he was born into the late 19th century German romantic tradition at a time when it was dying. He spent the first decade of his mature career writing the tone poems (Till Eulenspiegel, Don Juan, Also Sprach Zarathustra, etc.) that Wagner and Liszt might have written had they lived longer. All are considered significant works. The next decade he carried on the German operatic tradition with Salome, Elektra, and Der Rosenkavalier. At that point he celebrated his fiftieth birthday and considered his career to be near its end. He lived forty-five more years. During that period he became something of an anachronism, unable to adapt to the newer atonal and neo-classic styles, composing instead in the nearly dead 19th century German style. If one selects his early works to study, Strauss is a genius. If one evaluates his career as a whole, he becomes a minor figure.
One element of Strauss’ technique can never be disputed. He was an uncontested master at the craft of composition and orchestration. His scores are unbelievably meticulous and precise. He was able to tell his publishers exactly when each act of an opera would be finished and then to deliver it on time. Once, when beginning the setting of a poem, he was interrupted by his wife who wanted to take a walk. He told her he needed exactly twenty minutes to complete the work. When she returned after the interval he was finished. Such a prodigious technique did have its dangers. Simply looking at a score page often suggested new counter-melodies to him. This “damned gift,” as he called it, often led him to put too much into his scores. It was however, this same extraordinary faculty that kept him going during his later fallow years. The vast amount of music he produced after Der Rosenkavalier was never faulted for technique. The problem was that, with the exception of the last songs and concertos, he had little to say.
At the end of the war the eighty-year-old Strauss could have been forgiven had he decided never to compose again. His beloved Munich lay in ruins and he was forced into temporary exile in Switzerland until the “denazification” process cleared his name. During the war he had attempted to “work with the system” to preserve German culture. Composition was not something he could set aside, however. Shortly before leaving for Switzerland, he was approached by an American soldier named John de Lancie who requested an oboe concerto. (The young de Lancie would enjoy a distinguished career as principal oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra.) Strauss immediately set to work and completed a short score on September 14, 1945, the last music composed at his home in Garmisch. The full score was finished six weeks later and dedicated to his Swiss friend Dr. Volkmar Andreae. The premiere took place in Zurich on February 26, 1946, with Marcel Saillet as soloist. Poor John de Lancie had to be content with a letter from Strauss stipulating that he could perform the work in America whenever he desired- until its publication! The concerto’s light-hearted good humor and classical textural transparency disguise the fact that it was composed during what Strauss liked to call his “December” years. The traditional three movements are played without pause.
by Jim Keays
Concert Performance
Orchestration
Solo oboe, 2 flutes, 1 English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, Timpani, strings