Strauss depicts "family values" in music

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1904, during his first visit to America, the German composer Richard Strauss conducted a program of his music at Carnegie Hall in New York. Featured were Strauss’ tone-poems “Don Juan.” “Also sprach Zarathustra,” and the world premiere of a brand-new work, titled “Sinfonia Domestica,” or “A Domestic Symphony.”

After tone poems devoted to philanderers like Don Juan and philosophers like Zarathustra, Strauss apparently decided it was time to deal with family values.

He dedicated his “Domestic Symphony” to “my beloved wife and our young one,” and the work supposedly depicts 24 hours in the Strauss household, complete with baby’s bath, temper tantrum, and connubial bliss after baby settles down for the night.

It raised eyebrows then, and still does today. Strauss remained unflappable. “I see no reason why I shouldn’t write about myself. I find the subject as interesting as Napoleon or Alexander the Great.”

One waggish New York music critic, no doubt after meeting the formidable Mrs. Strauss, who accompanied her husband on his American tour, wrote: “If this were a true biographical sketch, we fancy that the wife would be portrayed by trombones and tuba, while the husband would be the second fiddle.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) Sinfonia Domestica, Op. 53 Minnesota Orchestra; Edo de Waart, cond. Virgin 61460

On This Day

Births

• 1685 - German composer and organist Johann Sebastian Bach, in Eisenach;

• 1839 - Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky, in Karevo, Pskov district (Julian date: March 9);

Deaths

• 1934 - German composer Franz Schreker, age 55, in Berlin;

• 1936 - Russian composer Alexander Glazunov, age 70, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France;

Premieres

• 1826 - Beethoven: String Quartet in Bb, Op. 130, in Vienna, by the Schuppanzigh Quartet;

• 1839 - Schubert: "Great" Symphony in C (old No. 9, now No. "7"), in a posthumous, heavily cut premiere performance by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn;

• 1860 - Brahms: Ballads Nos. 2-3, from Op. 10, for piano, in Vienna;

• 1904 - R. Strauss: "Sinfonia domestica," at Carnegie Hall in New York, with Strauss conducting;

• 1918 - Stravinsky: "Ragtime" for Eleven Instruments, in Morges;

• 1925 - Ravel: opera "L'enfant et les sortiléges" (The Child and the Spells), in Monte Carlo at the Grand Théatre;

• 1971 - William Mayer: "Octagon" for piano and orchestra, in New York City, by the American Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting, with William Masselos, piano;

• 1972 - David Amram: Bassoon Concerto, in Washington, DC, by the National Symphony, Antal Dorati conducting, with Kenneth Pasmanick the soloist.