Lament For A Lost World

Some of the most emotional music ever composed has been inspired by feelings of grief and loss.  That is certainly true of the piece I want to tell about today.

Given the date of composition -- 1944-45 -- and the horrific destruction of the cities of Germany in the final years of the war, I have no trouble interpreting this work for strings as a lament, a threnody if you will, for the wholesale obliteration of centuries of rich cultural heritage and artistic beauty in the culminating firestorms of the war.

The odd thing is that the composer -- Richard Strauss -- may have somewhat covered his tracks by giving the piece the following decidedly unemotional title: Metamorphosen: Study For 23 Solo Strings.

No doubt many people have been fooled by this literary-sounding title, but I for one have no doubt that it is purely a smokescreen for what was really happening in this remarkable piece.  For one thing, the title leads us to expect metamorphosis or transformation yet none of the themes undergoes any significant transformation at all.  The composer's penchant for complex polyphony leads to ever-new and more complex combinations of themes, but the materials themselves remain for the most part unaltered.

Since the composer made no explicit statements, many different theories have been advanced as to just what Strauss meant in this work.  That debate, of course, assumes that he in fact "meant" something particular -- and knew what it was.  But there's no proof that he did.

Although the work as we know it was completed to a commission by the Swiss conductor Paul Sacher, Strauss had in fact been sketching out a work for a string septet before the commission came, and these sketches were amplified into the much larger ensemble work we now have.

Now, let's just park all of that information and listen to the music itself.

The most striking aspect of this half-hour work is that almost all the thematic material consists of melodic lines that move downwards.  Although the four-chord opening is a rising sequence, it at once leads into a descending scale passage.  The same result happens nearly every time a melodic line line leaps upwards -- almost at once it descends.  Add to this profusion of descending lines the predominantly minor tonalities, and the reasons for the music's profound feelings of loss and pain become clear.

The work opens in a slow tempo, with the strings playing low in their range -- creating a dark sound that will be often heard as the piece unfolds.  Also evident at once is the use of long, singing legato lines with phrase breaks few and far between.  The four repeated notes heard after just a few bars have been tagged as a homage to the famous four-note rhythm of Beethoven's Symphony # 5, but here are played at the speed of a dirge.  In any case, I find the equating of the theme with Beethoven rather far-fetched because only the first 3 notes of a 10-note melodic phrase imitate the Beethoven -- and those are played at about 1/4 of the speed of Beethoven's work (if even that fast).

At about the six-minute mark, a new theme (rising, in a major key) changes the landscape and the tempo as the music gets a little faster.  This lengthy central section contains much of the innovative recombining of melodies.  It also contains passages which are lighter in colour, in weight, and in mood -- due to major keys, smaller combinations of instruments, and quieter dynamics as well as quicker tempi.  Over a space of eight or nine minutes, the tempo continues to increase until an almost frenzied acceleration lifts the music to a high point of excitement.  Then: catastrophe.  Two massive octave-unison chords return us instantly to the slow dark world of the opening, but now played fortissimo with shattering impact.

From here on, there is less of the elaborate polyphony and more of a process where themes are restated in different keys, and different registers.  Gradually the music descends into the lower ranges of the instruments and grows quieter again.  At last, a double bass intones the Marcia funebre from Beethoven's Eroica Symphony (# 3), which fits in perfect counterpoint with one of the descending themes we've heard so often -- the theme that begins with the four repeated notes.  The music then descends quietly, ending slowly in utter darkness at the lowest ranges of the instruments.

The significance of that Beethoven quotation was underlined by Strauss: he placed the phrase between quotation marks, and inscribed the words "In memoriam" above it.  Once again, as with the work as a whole, we'll never know exactly what his point or purpose was in doing so.  But in this instance, at least, it seems clear that he did have a point, and that the written note was a late addition when the work was almost complete.

Ever since I first heard Metamorphosen, many years ago (in a recording), I have always been captivated by the sounds Strauss conjured out of his string ensemble -- so different from any of the famous string works of English composers, for instance.  As time goes on, and I become still more familiar with the luminous darkness of this remarkable piece, I find it easier to believe that Strauss wrote it when his whole world-view was steeped in the depths of sorrow and loss.  

Curiously, listening to Metamorphosen doesn't make me feel sad.  Rather, it's always for me an uplifting experience, a kind of musical catharsis.  I think all of us have times in our lives when we need that kind of emotional relief and outlet.  

Even if you don't agree with my interpretation, I think you will find that Metamorphosen is a work of a rare beauty and quality that demand the greatest respect -- in a word, a masterpiece.

Fairy Tale Epic Opera

One of the great under-valued masterpieces of the operatic world is a mysterious fairy tale set in an indeterminate, ancient land and centred upon the actions of a group of (almost all) nameless symbolic characters.  The elements of the story are both timeless and very much of the time in which it was created -- a feature which it shares with all fantasy literature and art.

Die Frau ohne Schatten ("The Woman Without a Shadow") by Richard Strauss, to a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, was co-created by the two artists, working in tandem, between 1911 and 1915-17. Its composition thus overlapped the years of the first world war.  The opera had a difficult genesis, and the first performances in 1919 were not successful.  With time, it has come to be better appreciated as a great example of the composer's musical genius.  Yet Die Frau remains relatively little-known by comparison with Salome, Elektra, and the ever-popular Der Rosenkavalier.  

There are two main reasons.  One is the work's deserved reputation for complexity and opacity of symbolism, the element which von Hofmannsthal was most at pains to incorporate.  The other is the extreme difficulty of casting, playing, singing, and staging the piece, which has confined live performances to few and very expensive productions in a handful of the world's greatest opera houses. 

The opera has no less than five demanding principal roles, all of which must be filled by singers with large, dramatic voices, able to be heard clearly over Strauss' rich, heavy orchestration.  All five have numerous passages at the highest extreme of their voice types -- even the rich mezzo-soprano role of the Nurse often rises above the stave.  

It would take far too much space to give a detailed synopsis of the complex story, so here's a quick little outline of a summary of a synopsis.  The Emperor of the Southeastern Isles has captured a beautiful gazelle which has turned into a woman, and he has married her.  But she is the daughter of the spirit world's ruler, Keikobad, and thus not human.  Keikobad (who never actually appears in the opera) has decreed that unless she becomes fully human by acquiring a shadow within 12 months, she will return to him and the Emperor will turn to stone.

The Nurse who cares for the Empress concocts a demonic plan to trick a mortal woman into selling her shadow to the Empress.  This woman, the Dyer's Wife, is out of love with her husband (Barak, the Dyer) and wishes not to bear children.  Selling her shadow will free her from having to do so.

After numerous plot complications, the two couples are put to the test in Keikobad's temple.  The Empress, in spite of seeing her husband already turning to stone, refuses to take the shadow from the Dyer's Wife, since the Dyer and his wife have reconciled.  Her refusal releases both couples, the Empress is granted a shadow, and the opera ends in full reconciliation, with the Voices of the Unborn Children having the final word.

Even with such a brief outline, it will be plain that there are many truly mysterious and indeed magical elements in the story.  Well, that is certainly within the province of fairy tales -- a realm in which this story unquestionably operates.  There's no getting around the fact that both Strauss and Hofmannsthal regarded child-bearing as the highest happiness of women.  Yes, it's a sexist concept.  And yet, the fashionable belief systems of time, place, and people are easily detected in fairy tales from all times and all cultures.  

This shouldn't mean that we set them aside on that account.  There is, after all, a great deal more to be said in this opera on such themes as patience, constancy, honesty, moderation, and caring towards others -- and by no means are these themes developed in relation only to characters of one gender.     

Richard Strauss clothed this epic tale in some of the most complex and inspired music of his entire career.  On the one hand there are moments of grandly dramatic power: the descent to earth of the Nurse and Empress in Act 1, the scene of the Empress dreaming in Act 2, the catastrophic destruction of Barak's home at the end of Act 2, the banishment of the Nurse to the realm of humanity in Act 3, and above all the climactic testing of the Empress -- a scene in which the singer, in extremity of emotion, has to erupt into a speaking voice instead of singing.  In the end, she cries out her final words:  "Ich... will... nicht!"  ("I will not!") as she refuses to take the shadow.

On  the other hand are such lyrical beauties as the temptation of the Dyer's Wife by a beautiful young man conjured up by the nurse, the watchmen's chorus at the end of Act 1, the singing of the Unborn Children in Act 2, the music which leads the Empress into the Temple in Act 3, and the final magical scene of reconciliation at the end of the opera.

The conjunction of all these elements results in perhaps the most powerful and moving of music dramas since Wagner.  I've never seen it staged, but certainly hope to at some time.  In the meantime, there are always the recordings.

The work has only been recorded in studio half a dozen times, while another dozen or so of live stage performances are available in audio or video form.  If you seek an audio recording, try to find the Decca recording with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Georg Solti.  It was the very first recording to present the 3 1/4 hour opera absolutely complete, with none of the numerous cuts traditionally used in the opera house (many of them sanctioned by the composer).  Solti waited for many years, and spread his recording sessions over the years 1989-1991, in order to have his dream cast: Julia Varady as the Empress, Hildegarde Behrens as the Dyer's Wife, Placido Domingo as the Emperor, and Jose van Dam as Barak the Dyer.  Less well known but no less powerful or dramatic is Reinhild Runkel as the demonic Nurse.  The recorded sound is also exemplary, with subtly varying sonic environments clearly delineating onstage and offstage singing and playing.