Today in Music (1896): Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra premiered

Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zoroaster), tone poem for orchestra, Op. 30 (TrV 176) Richard Strauss (composer)

Composed: 1896 Premiered: November 27, 1896 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: classical

Parts/Movemets: Einleitung (Introduction) Von den Hinterweltlern (Of the Backworldsmen) Von der großen Sehnsucht (Of the Great Longing) Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften (Of Joys and Passions) Das Grablied (The Song of the Grave) Von der Wissenschaft (Of Science and Learning) Der Genesende (The Convalescent) Das Tanzlied (The Dance-Song) Nachtwandlerlied (Song of the Night Wanderer) Average Duration: 33:30

Rating: 4.303 out of 5.00 (average of 4 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: Strauss, like many of his contemporaries, was enthralled with Richard Wagner. Many of his works exhibit “an intent on Strauss’ part to re-create the spirit of the older composer’s works.” AMG However, in adapting Friedrich Nietzsche’s tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra to music, “Strauss’ music soon took on a distinct identity.” AMG A former Wagner devotee, Nietzsche had become his most vocal critic. By aligning with Nietzsche, “Strauss forever removed himself from the camp of ‘true’ Wagnerians.” AMG “Like most of Strauss’ tone poems, Also sprach Zarathustra employs massive instrumental forces; however, it provides a contrast to Strauss’ more strongly narrative works in its deployment of the orchestra in a more subtle and deft manner. The relative concision of its musical material suggests the composer’s attempt to mirror the nature and character of his literary source.” AMG He completed it “in the summer of 1896 and premiered in November of the same year…Iit was among the works that forever solidified the composer’s reputation and distilled the essence of his singular orchestral language.” AMG The first of nine sections kicks off with an introduction which has been immortalized in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Three distinctive episodes follow, each exploring an element of Nietzsche’s text, “from Von den Hinterweltlern (From the Back-world People) to an expression of intense yearning (Von der großen Sehnsucht) and a portrayal of joy and passion (Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften). At the center of the work is Das Grablied (Song of the Grave), which sets the stage for the clever and ironic Von der Wissenschaft, in which a truncated fugue gently pokes fun at science by – perhaps prophetically – including all twelve chromatic pitches in its subject. Der Genesende (The Convalescent) slowly regains its strength, bursting forth into the energetic Das Tanzlied (Dance-Song), led by a solo fiddle.” AMG “The final section, Nachtwandlerlied (Song of the Night Wanderer), makes subtle use of tonal and thematic cues (most notably, a return to the tonality of the opening section) to suggest that the journey of the unnamed Night Wanderer is cyclic – eternally returning to its beginning.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Richard Strauss AMG All Music Guide Last updated 11/25/2023.

 

Today in Music (1885): Brahms' Symphony No. 4 premiered

Symphony No. 4 in E Minor Johannes Brahms (composer)

Composed: 1884-85 First Performed: October 25, 1885 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: classical > symphony

Parts/Movements: Allegro non troppo Andante moderato Allegro giocoso Allegro energico e passionato Average Duration: 40:30

Rating: 4.562 out of 5.00 (average of 6 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Work: “The symphonies of Johannes Brahms are built on granite foundations – solid musical ideas that can initially seem less than sexy. Where Beethoven seeks to push limits of harmony, phrase, length, and rhythm, Brahms…establishes a comfortable basic perimeter, and lever lets the heavy machinery venture outside of it. His four pieces for orchestra represent a scholarly consolidation of everything he knew; he didn’t begin writing symphonies until after he turned forty,” TM completing his first one at age 43. “The composer’s output to that point suggests a conscious process of self-education. A number of smaller-scale orchestral works, including the Variations on a Theme of Haydn and the proto-symphonic Piano Concerto No. 1, suggest preparation for what Brahms clearly saw as the elusive of compositional enterprises. He was to meet the challenge with a skill and individual spirit, one of Classicism refracted through the prism of high romanticism, that led many to pronounce him heir to Beethoven.” AM The First Movement: “Each of the movements bears the distinct stamp of the composer’s personality. The first begins with a theme in E minor based upon the interval of a third, which also provides a structural and motivic foundation for the remainder of the work. There is a notable sense of unrest from beginning to end, and the tragic, even fatalistic atmosphere is further and stunningly underlined by the final, minor-key plagal (IV-I) cadence.” AM The Second Movement: “The second movement, which opens with a brief, melancholy sort of fanfare, gives way to the quietly accompanied winds in perhaps one of the loveliest of any of the composer’s themes, granted particular plangency through the use of the flat sixth and seventh scale degrees borrowed from the minor mode. This material is gradually developed into soaring, tutti lyricism that fades into ethereal quiet.” AM The Third Movement: “The third movement, a lusty, stomping, duple dance, proved so popular in Brahms’ lifetime that audiences constantly demanded that it be repeated.” AM The Fourth Movement: The last movement is perhaps most notable of all, cast as it is in the ‘archaic’ Baroque form of a chaconne — variations over a ground bass. The chaconne’s subject is in fact a slight modification of that used by Bach in his Cantata No. 150; though deceptively simple — essentially an ascending minor scale segment from the tonic note to the dominant, then a leap back to the tonic — Brahms uses this skeleton as the basis for an increasingly elaborate and thematic harmonic framework. From its first presentation, which is not as a bass line, but as a theme in the winds, Brahms gradually weaves some 34 variations that steadily build in intensity, as though in defiance to the oppressive, insistent rotation of the ground. The final variations lead directly into an ending which reconfirms the weight of tragedy and pathos borne by the first movement.” AM The finale “is like a dying man’s flashback dream, with scenes of tragedy and joy bursting forth and then receding over a recurring pattern of eight chords. Brahms treats each event as a discrete scene, supporting them with slight changes of color, piling world upon world in a way that makes the mood swings consistently surprising.” TM

Reviews: AM AllMusic.com review by Michael Rodman TM Tom Moon (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Workman Publishing Company, Inc.: New York, NY. Page 112. Related DMDB Links: Last updated 2/27/2026.