The Unsung Strauss

Notes on the Program

by Steven Blier

Richard Strauss's life spanned from the Civil War almost until the Korean War; his first song was written at age six, his first published song at age nineteen, and his final songs at age eight-five. Altogether he left us 205 Lieder, a number of which have entered the standard repertoire forcefully enough to be considered either "chestnuts" or  "hackneyed," depending on your frame of mind. But given Strauss's fame and status in music history, it's surprising that his reputation as a song composer rests on a disproportionately small number of songs. Certainly, there are extraordinary songs by Wolf, Brahms, Schubert, and Schumann that languish in obscurity, but in the case of Strauss, the 10% of  hit tunes have threatened to obliterate the lesser-known works. When Strauss himself came to New York to present three song recitals at Town Hall in December of l921, featuring three different singers, he duplicated many songs--his early success "Zueignung" turns up on each concert.

There are many reasons why so many of this composer's songs have remained unheard for so long. The most practical explanation is that they have been difficult to find in print for a number of years, except in library edition "Complete Works" collections.  One could find the usual 35 popular-to-unusual pieces; but getting one's hands on even a dog-eared, black market photocopy of much of this oeuvre was the art song equivalent of scoring recreational drugs  Strauss's fortunes as a song writer are due for a turn, since the bulk of these works, written at the turn of the century, have entered the public domain, and have finally gotten republished in affordable editions.

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