The Life of Richard Strauss [Hardcover]

Richard Strauss lived and worked through one of the most turbulent periods of German history.Richard Strauss's successful conducting and composing career spanned one of the most fascinating stretches of modern German history, from oil lamps to atomic energy, from a young empire to a divided Germany. This biography covers Strauss's early musical development, his emergence as a tone poet in the late nineteenth century, his turn to the stage at the beginning of the twentieth century, the successes and misfires of the post-World War I era, the turbulent 1930s, and the period of the Second World War and its aftermath.Richard Strauss's successful conducting and composing career spanned one of the most fascinating stretches of modern German history, from oil lamps to atomic energy, from a young empire to a divided Germany. This biography covers Strauss's early musical development, his emergence as a tone poet in the late nineteenth century, his turn to the stage at the beginning of the twentieth century, the successes and misfires of the post-World War I era, the turbulent 1930s, and the period of the Second World War and its aftermath.Richard Strauss' successful conducting and composing career spanned one of the most fascinating stretches of modern German history, from oil lamps to atomic energy, from a young empire to a divided Germany. This biography covers Strauss' early musical development, his emergence as a tone poet in the late nineteenth century, his turn to the stage at the beginning of the twentieth century, the successes and misfires of the post-World War I era, the turbulent 1930s, and the period of the Second World War and its aftermath.Introduction; 1. Musical development and early career; 2. 'Onward and away to ever-new victories': Strauss's emergence as a tone poet; 3. The rise of an opera composer; 4. Between two empires: Strauss in the 1920s; 5. After Hofmannsthal: personal and political crises; 6. 'Now the day has made me tired': the War and its aftermaló(