Richard Strauss’s friends protested vigorously against this orthodox ending; and Seidl,[1] Jorisenne,[2] and Wilhelm Mauke[3] pretended that the subject was something loftier, that it was the eternal struggle of the soul against its lower self and its deliverance by means of art.  I shall not enter into that discussion, though I think that such a cold and commonplace symbolism is much less interesting than the struggle with death, which one feels in every note of the composition.  It is a classical work, comparatively speaking; broad and majestic and almost like Beethoven in style.  The realism of the subject in the hallucinations of the dying man, the shiverings of fever, the throbbing of the veins, and the despairing agony, is transfigured by the purity of the form in which it is cast.  It is realism after the manner of the symphony in C minor, where Beethoven argues with Destiny.  If all suggestion of a programme is taken away, the symphony still remains intelligible and impressive by its harmonious expression of feeling.

[1] Richard Strauss, eine Charakterskizze, 1896, Prague.]

[2] R.  Strauss, Essai critique et biologique, 1898, Brussels.]

[3] Der Musikfuehrer:  Tod und Verklaerung, Frankfort.]

Many German musicians think that Strauss has reached the highest point of his work in Tod und Verklaerung.  But I am far from agreeing with them, and believe myself that his art has developed enormously as the result of it.  It is true it is the summit of one period of his life, containing the essence of all that is best in it; but Heldenleben marks the second period, and is its corner-stone.  How the force and fulness of his feeling has grown since that first period!  But he has never re-found the delicate and melodious purity of soul and youthful grace of his earlier work, which still shines out in Guntram, and is then effaced.

* * * * *

Strauss has directed Wagner’s dramas at Weimar since 1889.  While breathing their atmosphere he turned his attention to the theatre, and wrote the libretto of his opera Guntram.  Illness interrupted his work, and he was in Egypt when he took it up again.  The music of the first act was written between December, 1892, and February, 1893, while travelling between Cairo and Luxor; the second act was finished in June, 1893, in Sicily; and the third act early in September, 1893, in Bavaria.  There is, however, no trace of an oriental atmosphere in this music.  We find rather the melodies of Italy, the reflection of a mellow light, and a resigned calm.  I feel in it the languid mind of the convalescent, almost the heart of a young girl whose tears are ready to flow, though she is smiling a little at her own sad dreams.  It seems to me that Strauss must have a secret affection for this work, which owes its inspiration to the undefinable impressions of convalescence.  His fever fell asleep in it, and certain passages