Richard Strauss Accomplishments

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Born into a family of musicians, Richard Georg Strauss, was born in Munich on June 11, 1864. His father, Franz Joseph Strauss, was one of the best French Horn player at that time; he also was a member of the Munich Court Opera. Being in such a musical family, Strauss would be raised with ethics of hard work as well as frugality, precise musical expertise, and a love of the classics. If he was not raised with the ethics of hard work, great works such as Don Juan would have never been written. For the Strauss family, music was integrated in their lives. Strauss began to take piano lessons at the age of four and began his violin studies four years after that. By the time he was six, he began composing his first works “Schneider-polka” …show more content…

Concurrent to his outset of his official career, he discovered a new world: that of Richard Wagner. Strauss would begin to dissect the genius within Wagner. This was not the first time Strauss showed interest of Wagner. One of the first times he began showing interest in Wagner was in 1874, when he heard operas by Wagner. At that time, his father forbade him from to study Wagner’s music until he was the age of 16. While studying the genius of Wagner, he attended the Bayreuth Festival for the first time in 1882. He would debut there as a conductor with his Opera “Guntram” in 1894. Strauss would eventually would soon free himself from his father’s influence when he met Alexander Ritter, a composer, violinist, and the husband of one of the nieces of Richard Wagner. Soon, Strauss left his father’s conservative writing style and began writing symphonic tone poems. Strauss’ friendship with Alexander Ritter would lead to “the key reason to my future development.” After his travels to Italy, Strauss found inspiration and created the first symphonic tone poems such as “Macbeth” and “Don Juan”. His role model for his tone poems was Franz Liszt. Thanks to his friend and mentor, Alexander Ritter, Strauss was able to reconstruct the basic principles of Franz Liszt’s works and mold it into his own way. Strauss quotes, “in which the poetic idea also becomes the main musical