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Richard Strauss (June 11 , 1864 – September 8 , 1949) was born on June 11, 1864 in Munich, Germany,
the son of Franz Strauss who was the principal French horn player at the Court Opera in Munich. He
received a thorough, but conservative, musical education from his father in his youth, and began to compose
at a very early age. In 1882 he entered Munich University, but left a year later to go to Berlin. There he
studied briefly before securing a post as assistant conductor to Hans von Bülow taking over from him at
Munich when he resigned in 1885. His compositions around this time were in the style of Robert
Schumann or Felix Mendelssohn. Strauss' style began to change when he
met Alexander Ritter, a noted violinist and the husband of one of Richard
Wagner's nieces. It was he who first got Strauss seriously interested in the
music of Wagner.
Tone poems
This newly found interest resulted in what is widely regarded as Strauss' first
piece to show his mature personality, the tone poem Don Juan. When this
was premiered in 1889, half of the audience cheered while the other half
booed. Strauss went on to write a series of other tone poems, including Tod
und Verklärung(Death and Transfiguration, 1888–89), Till Eulenspiegels
lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, 1894–95), Also sprach
Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1896, from Nietzsche; it was used
by Stanley Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey), Don Quixote (1897) and Ein
Heldenleben (A Hero's Life, 1897–98).
Operas
Around the end of the 19th century, Strauss turned his attention to opera. His
first two attempts in the genre, Guntram in 1894 and Feuersnot in 1901 were
critical failures. However, in 1905, he produced Salome (based on the play
by Oscar Wilde), and the reaction was as passionate and extreme as it had been with Don Juan.
Strauss' next opera was Elektra, which took his use of dissonance even further. It was also the first opera in
which Strauss collaborated with the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The two would work together on
numerous other occasions. For these later works, however, Strauss moderated his harmonic language
somewhat, with the result that works such as Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose, 1910) were great
public successes. The atmosphere of this opera, and of the next ones, avoids the massive use of harsh
dissonances and looks back to the XVIII century. Strauss continued to produce operas at regular intervals
until 1940. These included Ariadne auf Naxos (1912), Die Frau ohne Schatten(The lady without
shadow1918), Intermezzo (1923), Die ägyptische Helena (1927), and Arabella (1932), all in collaboration
with Hofmannsthal; and Die schweigsame Frau (1934), with Stefan Zweig as librettist.
Strauss and the Nazis
There is much controversy surrounding Strauss' role in Germany after the Nazi Party came to power.
In November 1933, without any consultation with Strauss, Goebbels appointed him to the post of president of
the Reichsmusikkammer, the State Music Bureau. Strauss decided to keep his post but to remain apolitical.
Strauss was forced to resign his position in 1935 after refusing to remove from the playbill for Die
schweigsame Frau the name of the Jewish librettist, his friend Stefan Zweig.
His decision to produce Friedenstag in 1938, a one-act opera set in a besieged fortress during the Thirty
Years War – essentially a hymn to peace and a thinly veiled criticism of the Third Reich--during a time when
an entire nation was preparing for war, has been seen as extraordinarily brave. With its contrasts between
freedom and enslavement, war and peace, light and dark, this work has been considered more related
to Fidelio than to any of Strauss's other recent operas.
Nonetheless, he composed the “Olympic Hymns” for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. He and his “Jewish
related” family remained under the protection of Gauleiter Baldur von Schirach. Strauss composed his last
two operas “The Love of Danae” and “Capriccio” and escaped to Switzerland in 1945 where he experienced
great financial hardship.
The Final Years
In 1948, Strauss wrote his last masterpiece, Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) for soprano and orchestra.
All his life he had produced lieder, but these are probably the best known. When compared to the work of
younger composers, Strauss' harmonic and melodic language was looking somewhat old-fashioned by this
time. Nevertheless, the songs have always been popular with audiences and performers.
Richard Strauss died on September 8, 1949 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany at the age of 85.
 SALOME
Strauss watched Oscar Wilde’s “Salome” in Berlin in 1903: it was performed in the German version prepared
by Hedwig Lachmann. He was strongly fascinated by the play and immediately recognised how well suited it
was for opera. He composed it using directly the German translation, without a libretto.
On December 9th, 1905, Salome was premiered on the stage in Dresden (Strauss’ favourite location for
premieres). It immediately became the epitome of modern opera music – both for the supporters as well as
for the critics, to which the censors and the clergy belonged.
Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was known for his lack of musical talent, stated that Strauss had injured his
reputation with his opera „Salome“. Actually, this “injury” helped Strauss to finance his villa in Garmisch.

When Richard Strauss began composing Salome, he was emerging from a period of intense focus on
orchestral writing. He had just finished creating several symphonic tone poems that made use of an
expanded orchestra. As a result, the score for Salome requires over 100 players, including some new and
non-traditional keyboards instruments, such as the celesta, harmonium, and organ; the heckelphon finds its
first important use in this opera. This orchestra was designed for maximum power, and singers must have
powerful voices to be heard. Strauss was reported to say to his orchestra during a rehearsal of Salome in
Prague: “That is too gentle! We want wild beasts here! This is not civilized music; it is music that must crash!”
Strauss was intentionally trying to create music that fit the violent, decadent themes of opera, and he was
intentionally pushing the boundaries of musical volume and style.

Salome is considered a work a genius in its use of leitmotif, a musical concept that Strauss picked up from
Wagner. In Salome, every character has their own leitmotif, in addition to several conceptual or thematic
motifs. The main motif associated her Salome’s character is important to listen for as it returns continuously
throughout the opera in various expanded and elaborated forms.

Salome’s Motif

Salome’s motive is one of the first things we hear as the curtain rises, following and opening scale in the
clarinet. Other motives strongly associated with Salome are her desire motives:

Salome’s Desire Motives

Jochanaan’s motif has a strong tonal sound, contrasting the chromaticism of Salome’s motive. Jochanaans
motive is strictly diatonic, capturing his stoic character:

Jochanaan’s Motif
Another important motif associated with Jochanaan is the prophecy motif, based on fourths.

Prophecy Motif

While there are many more motifs used throughout the opera, one more example of an important motif that
can be easily identified is the kiss motif. As Salome becomes more and more determined to kiss Jochanaan,
the kiss motif appears. It can be heard most clearly whenever she sings “Ich will dein mund kussen,
Jochanaan” – “I will kiss your lips Jochanaan”:

“Let me kiss thy mouth”

Large Scale Tonal Connections:

In addition to the embedded fabric of leitmotifs, another important musical element in Salome is the way in
which specific harmonic changes and tonal structure within the opera mirror relationship dynamics and
conflicts within the story. Generally speaking, the two main characters that are connected through tonal
structure are our title character Salome, and the object of her desire: Jochanaan. Jochanaan is assigned the
key of purity, C major. The first and last time we hear Jochanaan sing in the opera, his music is in a C
major/minor realm. Salome tends to move through sharp keys that consistently bring her back to C#
major/minor, a key that has historically been associated with an exotic “other”, mysticism, and sensuality.
The harmonic relationship between C and C# is both interesting and odd, as these two musical keys – and
the characters associated with them – are simultaneously fundamental opposites, as well as completions of
one another: they share no common tonal ground, and each character fills the tonal void that the other lacks.

The core of the opera is Salome’s Dance of the Seven Veils. The dance embodies several elements:

• The beginning and the end have fast tempo and the music is highly dissonant and wild.
• The dance uses oriental melodies and orchestration.
• Salome’s motives are heard in the dance and transformed into dance melodies: they show the real
thoughts of the dancing girl to the audience.
• During the final, wild part of the dance, the theme of prophecy is heard, indicating what the real goal
of the dance is: the head of the prophet.
Another fundamental moment is Salome’s kiss: it is performed on a bitonal chord played by the double
basses; in the end Salome exclaims “I have kissed thy mouth, Jochannaan” on these chords:

Bitonal chord “I have kissed thy mouth, Jochannaan”

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The chord in the second measure is known as “Salome’s chord”: it is a bitonal chord made of a 7 dominant
of A major together with a F sharp major chord.

The opera ends with Herod ordering to kill Salome and her desire motive is turned into a minor third.

A final note on Singing Salome

The role of Salome is an incredibly difficult role to sing, as the soprano needs to have the power and range
of a Wagnerian singer, coupled with the ability to display the emotional vulnerability of a teenage princess.
The soprano singing Salome must also grapple with the Dance of the Seven veils. Several sopranos
throughout history have refused to perform the dance of the seven veils because of its perceived indecency,
resulting in dance doubles being dropped in to replace them.