Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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STRAUSS STRAUSS 717
and published in rapid succession 283 works
(Haslinger and Spina) not less popular than
those of his brother. He had always been
delicate, and the excitement incidental to his
calling increased the mischief year by year.
visit to "Warsaw in 1870, against the wish of
his friends, was very disastrous. Some Bussian
ofiSoers, having sent for him in the middle of
the night to play for them, so shamefully illtreated
him for his refusal that he had to take
to his bed. Under the devoted nursing of his
wife (married in 1857) he rallied suificiently to
return to Vienna, but sank a few days afterwards,
July 22, 1870.
The youngest of his brothers, Edtjaed, was
born at Vienna, Feb. 14, 1835, and educated
at the Schotten and Akademien Gymnasiums.
His father having died before he gi-ew up he
devoted himself entirely to music, learnt the
harp, and studied composition with Preyer.
In 1862 he made his first appearance as a conductor
in the Dianasaal, and was well received
for his father's sake. In 1865 he took his
brother Johann's place at the concerts in St.
Petersburg, and in 1870 became conductor of
the court balls. He and his band have made
repeated tours to Dresden, Leipzig, Breslau,
Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort, etc. He appeared
regularly in Vienna on fixed days at the Volksgarten,
and' in the winter in the large hall of
the Musikverein, when his programmes were
always attractive. He composed over 200
pieces of dance-music, published by Haslinger,
and latterly, with few exceptions, by Spina
(Sohreiber). Eduard Strauss married in 1863.
[In 1885 his orchestra was engaged at the
Inventions Exhibition in London, when the
daily concerts created a furore. He came also a
few years later and played at the Imperial
Institute.] c. F. p.
STRAUSS, Richard, was born June 11,
1864, at Munich, where his father, Franz Strauss
(boniFeb. 26, 1822), was first horn-playerin the
Court orchestra. The boy began to play the
piano at four years old, and tried his hand at
composition from the age of six onwards. In
his schooldays he had lessons on piano and
violin, and while at the Gymnasium (1874-
1882) studied composition seriously with the
Court Capellmeister, F. "W. Meyer. At school
concerts were performed a couple of choral works,
in 1880 three of his songs were sung in public,
and the Walter Quartet played his string
quartet in A in 1881, in which year Hermann
Levi performed a symphony in D minor in four
movements. Most of these childish and student
efforts are still unpublished. In 1882-83
Strauss was at the University. An unpublished
overture in C minor was played under Radecke
in Berlin, and a serenade for wind instiiiments
at Meiningen under Biilow. Theodore
Thomas performed his symphony in F
minor, op. 12, for the first time, in New York,
A
in Dec. 1884 ; and in 1885, on the occasion
of a visit of the Meiningen orchestra to Munich,
Biilow made him conduct his suite for thirteen
wind instruments (still unpublished), and he
came so successfully through the ordeal that he
was appointed in 1885 to succeed Biilow as sole
conductor. He had gone to Meiningen to profit
by Billow's hints on conducting, and while there
he appeared as a pianist in the solo part ol
Mozart's concerto in C minor. If Biilow fired
him with his own ardent admiration for Brahms,
to Alexander Ritter belongs the responsibility
of having turned the young composer's ideas
into the direction of the more advanced nuisic,
in which he was destined to make such a mark.
In April 1885 he resigned the post of conductor,
and travelled in Italy for a couple of months.
In August he was appointed as third Capellmeister
at Munich imder Levi. In 1889 he
became assistant to Lassen at Weimar as Court
Capellmeister ; in 1892 he had a dangerous
illness caused by overwork, and went on a
journey to Greece and Egypt on his recovery ;
he returned with the completed opera of Guntram,'
which was produced at Weimar on '
May
12, 1894. Later in the year he married Frl.
Pauline de Ahna, a young singer who had
created the principal part in his opera ; in the
same year he became Court Capellmeister at
Munich, and in 1899 a similar position was
conferred upon him at Berlin. In 1896-98 he
undertook extensive- tours in different parts of
Europe, with the object of making known his
maturer works ; he visited London in 1897, and
in June 1903 a 'Strauss Festival' was given
in St. James's Hall, with the Amsterdam Orchestra.
The composer showed himself a superlatively
fine conductor, one to whom every
detail of orchestral resources was perfectly
clear, and who possessed the power of getting
exactly what he wanted from his band. Such
are, in brief, the main facts of the career of
one who has, more effectually than any man
since Wagner, divided the musical world into
two camps.
The process of his artistic development is
very curious, for he began as a follower of the
classical ideals, and many of his earlier compositions
show the influence of Brahms. In a
minute analysis of his work by Gustav Brecher
(Leipzig, 1900) no fewer than six periods are
recognised in his work, and as that division
only goes down to Heldenleben ' we are probably
'
justified in assuming a new period for
each of the most important subsequent compositions.
But only the earlier stages can be taken
as authoritatively analysed. According to this,
opp. 1-11 represent the growth of his technical
skill in absolute music along the classical lines.
It