Compositions of the sort of
"Till Eulenspiegel," "Tod und Verklaerung" and "Ein Heldenleben," solidly
made and yet both narrative and dramatic, place the symphonic poem in
the category of legitimate musical forms. The themes of "Till" grow out
of each other quite as do the themes of a Beethoven symphony or of
"Tristan" or of "Parsifal." Indeed, Strauss has done for the symphonic
poem something of what Wagner did for the opera. And not an overwhelming
number of classical symphonies contain music more eloquent than, say,
the "sunrise" in "Also Sprach Zarathustra," or the final variation of
"Don Quixote" with its piercing, shattering trumpets of defeat, or the
terrifying opening passage of "Tod und Verklaerung." For Strauss was able
to unloose his verve and fantasy completely in the construction of his
edifices. His orchestra moves in strangest and most unconventional
curves, shoots with the violence of an exploding firearm, ambles like a
palfrey, swoops like a bird. There are few who, at a first hearing of a
Strauss poem, do not feel as though some wild and troubling and panic
presence had leaned over the concert hall and bedeviled the orchestra.
For, in his hands, it is no longer the familiar and terrorless thing it
once had been, a thing about whose behavior one can be certain.
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