Strauss’s style

Soprano raptures Unsurprisingly for a composer married to a fine soprano singer, Strauss’s operas favour that voice above others: the roles of the Feldmarschallin in

Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella, and the Countess in Capriccio are regarded as classics. With exceptions, Strauss wrote less appreciatively for the expressive qualities of male voices. Classical backdrop Contrary to his self-styled image as a Bavarian bourgeois, Strauss was widely read, with a parallel knowledge of theatre and painting. Several of his operas draw on mythological Greek stories. Mozart re-imagined While Wagner’s example lay behind Strauss’s bigscale masterpieces, his last years produced a group instrumental works inspired by Mozart (above) – two

Wind Sonatinas (evoking Mozart’s Wind Serenades), a superlative Second Horn Concerto, an Oboe Concerto, and the Duett-concertino for clarinet, bassoon and strings. Last thoughts By March 1945, the opera houses of Munich, Vienna and Dresden had all been destroyed by Allied bombing. In memory of the German culture that he feared had gone forever, Strauss composed a tragic masterwork in Metamorphosen for strings. Three years later, selfexiled in Switzerland, he wrote his Four Last Songs – whose depth of beauty conveys calm acceptance.