RICHARD STRAUSS

An unflattering portrait of Germany’s most popular modern classical composer, mitigated by hearty appreciation for his musical genius. Richard Strauss (1864—1949) aspired to follow in the mighty footsteps of Beethoven and Wagner, and this forthright promoter of “New German” music certainly equaled the former in arrogance and the latter in distasteful (though decidedly intermittent) anti-Semitism. Best known today for the opening chords of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (brilliant or bombastic, depending on whom you ask) and several of the very few canonical 20th-century operas (most notably Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, and Ariadne auf Naxos), Strauss won fame early as a conductor as well as a composer; English music producer and editor Boyden offers an especially juicy depiction of the rancid infighting in Greater Germany’s musical capitals, from Berlin to Vienna, where the young artist made his name while undercutting ostensible friends like Gustav Mahler. The author also convincingly argues that, despite his reputation for shocking subjects and aggressively “modern” scores, Strauss was in fact the last of the 19th-century romantics, “an end, not a beginning” (though Boyden also makes a nice case for Rosenkavalier and Ariadne as postmodern works of pastiche and irony). Strauss emerges in this biography as self-absorbed and selfish, the musician-as-businessman more concerned with success than artistic integrity, unable to understand those less effortlessly populist than he. His collaboration with the Nazis, to whom he handed priceless propaganda opportunities by remaining in Germany and even substituting for conductors dismissed for political reasons, is evaluated by Boyden as more a matter of willed blindness than active evil, but nonetheless shameful. Although the author retains his admiration for Strauss as “one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music,” his solid but not especially vivid descriptions of the music may not convince all readers of this claim’s justice. Judicious, well-balanced, and thoughtfully argued, though its readability would be enhanced by a little more passion either for or against the unpleasant Herr Strauss. (illustrations, not seen)