(Born at Munich, June II, 1864)
LENAU), OP. 20
SOME OF STRAUSS'S wild-eyed worshipers, not content with the quotations that serve as mottoes, have invented ingenious analyses in which we are told the precise meaning of each theme in Don Juan, and how this section represents his passion for a widow and that for a maiden. But did not Strauss himself say that the theme which represents, according to an analyst, Don Juan rushing off to new triumphs was intended as his drunken entrance into a ballroom? And is it not possible that when Strauss wrote down this theme he attached no specific and minute significance to it? No, there is no need of the showman with blackboard and rod while this music is playing. "Don Juan—after Lenau's poem" is enough; and merely Don Juan might serve.
A daring, brilliant composition: one that paints the hero as might a master's brush on canvas. How expressive the themes! How daring the treatment of them! What fascinating, irresistible insolence, glowing passion, and then the taste of Dead Sea fruit!
Don Juan, composed at Munich 1887-88, is known as the first of Strauss's symphonic or tone poems, but Macbeth, Op. 23, was composed at Munich, 1886-87 (revised in 1890 at Weimar), and published