Intermezzo

Vienna, the Gay--Vienna, rival of Paris, was last week preparing joyfully to revive its famed Redouten Bal, its opera ball, after four years of "interruption." Its committee was resolved it should miss no facets of the sparkle of days before the War. The entire building of the Opera House was last week in readiness for dancers, whom five famed orchestras, no less, were to serve. With faith in her charms, Vienna invited the wealth and beauty of Europe to attend.

As distinguished prelude to this gayety, there occurred the Vienna premiere of Intermezzo, newest opera by Richard Strauss. He, its composer, has lately been unkind to Vienna. Only last month, he refused to conduct the Viennese Opera unless the government granted him a huge salary, complete autocratic powers, a once royal palace for the duration of his life--this at a time when the Viennese are living on rations. But Vienna could not do without him. He alone could be the central jewel of a reconstructed crown.

Critics have nearly always prophesied speedy neglect for Richard Strauss,* now 62, and have simultaneously hailed him again and once more the foremost living composer. The subject of their judgment may be an old man, his apogee undoubtedly passed. But the creations of Richard Strauss, are never treated casually, for his work is intensely personal and his personality is provoking. Looking upon the philosophical brow, dreamy eyes, sensitive lips, effeminate chin, one marvels how this musician can grate so on the world. There is his mercenariness. Once he invited notables from all parts of Europe to a supper given after the premiere of his ballet La Legende de Joseph, then served upon each guest a bill for his share of the food. There is his snobbish insincerity: "I have always said my work was superficial." Many people will never forgive him for the satirical hoaxes of program music composed specially to test how much cacophony, dissonance, exaggeration, clowning the dilettante audiences would applaud, the grave critics would ponder. They are puzzled by his laughing acceptance of derogatory criticism, recall his wife's remark: "You may say what you like about his music, but if you don't praise his handwriting he will be cross with you." Many of these people curl the lip, reflect with Hugo Riesmann: "His last works only too clearly reveal his determination to make a sensation at all costs."

Whatever of Strauss's "last works" were meant by Critic Riesmann, there is a very substantial achievement on record, the dates of success in which carry on steadily to the present. Strauss is distinguished in at least four fields of music. Though his early compositions were not remarkable, he was even then known, and is still admired and feared, as peer of the greatest orchestral conductors. "He knew every instrument, and imperiously got what he wanted," said one critic. A veritable prima donna for temper, he once threatened to hurl his baton in the faces of the Weimar choir, unless their singing immediately improved. It was not surprising, then, that his second field turned out to be orchestral composition, particularly the tone poem, that free vehicle for originality. His melodious yet powerful Don Juan, an early work, remains his most popular tone poem; others, as Thus Spake Zarathustra, probed deep into philosophy; another, Heldenleben (Life of a Hero), was admittedly satirical autobiography, with realistic passages presenting the jabbering of critics. Then came, perhaps thirdly, though somewhat intermittent and extended in date, his fine concert songs (lieder), the equal in art of the great of all times in that field. Fourth was opera, which at first he twice essayed with failure.

Salome, his third opera, first produced in 1905, was a literal sensation. Because of the realistic power with which the composer treated the theme, for which he chose Oscar Wilde's necrophilistic version, U. S. presentations were banned for some time after the first Metropolitan hearing in Manhattan. But victrola records were allowed to popularize the "Dance of the Seven Veils"-- and in Europe the opera at once took front rank. Followed Elektra, whose unpleasant theme, being classic, caused less offense; then Der Rosencavalier, an entirely new departure in its Rabelaisian farce of both libretto and score (the libretto had to be cut for virtuous Manhattan). Der Rosencavalier, with its infectious burlesque, wit and sparkle, stays his best liked opera, perhaps his best to date.

Intermezzo's libretto, based on personal spats seldom so openly revealed, will cause some shrugging of shoulders, some sharper comment. Those who question the taste of such autobiography forget, possibly, that the world left him poor while he was creating some of its richest musical treasure; that publishers kept him whistling in the outer offices with immortal compositions grasped in numb fingers; that critics derided when first he wore his heart on his sleeve; that such experiences leave strange marks on sensitive natures.

*Not to be confused with Johann Strauss (1825-99) famed composer of Viennese waltzes, including The Beautiful Blue Danube.