“A day in the high mountains”

Technically speaking, Eine Alpensinfonie (= An Alpine Symphony) is not a symphony. For after 1911, Richard Strauss rejected his original plan to write a four-movement symphony based on the theme of a Tragedy of an Artist, and instead sat down to write a one-movement symphonic poem. He concentrated on the part he had first designated as the opening movement of the symphony and in which he provided a programmatic description of “the Alps”. The first sketches were made in 1911; in 1913 the work existed in the form of a partichelo (= reduced score); and two years later, the full score was completed. Some scholars have interpreted the prolonged period of time spent by Strauss in the composition of the Alpine Symphony, with very little progress at times, as “an indication that he had exhausted his capacity to portray instrumental programme music” (Wagner). The work was lacking a “truly significant musical core thought”, which was apparent for instance from the enormously expanded length of the Alpensinfonie (not only is this Strauss’ last, but also his longest tone poem, with an average duration of about 60 minutes), as well as from its relinquishment of certain categories employed in other symphonic poems, such as humour, irony and persiflage.
Eine Alpensinfonie is a virtuoso orchestral work par excellence, a show of instrumentation taken to the extreme. The orchestral parts include wind and thunder machines, cowbells, celesta and organ, as well as a heckelphone. Furthermore, behind the scenes there are no less than 12 horns, 2 trumpets and 2 trombones. The original version of the score requires at least 125 musicians. In his Alpensinfonie, Strauss describes a “day in the high mountains”, in which the precisely detailed portrayal of life in nature is emphasized, rather than the metaphysical experiences of the rambler. Thus, the music is more a painting than an expression of sensory perceptions – to quote Beethoven in reverse on the definition of his intentions with regard to the Pastorale. The detailed headings of the different sections make it easy for the listener to follow the ascent of the climber, which commences before sunrise. Matters are depicted here clearly, in an original and realistic manner. In other words, one could say: typically Bavarian. After all, from his house in the Upper-Bavarian town of Garmisch, Strauss could feast his eyes day and night on Germany’s highest mountain, the Zugspitze. Once while hiking in the mountains as a young lad, Strauss had been caught in a thunderstorm – almost 40 years before the completion of the Alpensinfonie – and was forced to finally take refuge in a mountain hut. Thus, his Alpensinfonie could perhaps be considered as a belated musical processing of his childhood experience.
Anyone who has ever set foot in the highest regions of the Alps would quickly agree that Strauss knew exactly what he was talking about (in a musical sense). Without a doubt, the high spots in the score include the drama of the A-major “Sunrise”, the subtle implementation of the glissandi in the strings, harps, triangle, and the runs of the woodwinds in the “Waterfall”, the raging of the natural elements unleashed when “Thunder and Tempest” breaks loose, as well as the solemn “Epilogue”. So far, there has not been a more realistic portrayal of natural phenomena in the history of orchestral literature.
Again, Strauss wrote his tone poem Macbeth Op. 23 for a large orchestra, although the instrumental dimensions do not in any way measure up to those of the Alpensinfonie. There are two versions of Macbeth available, which mark an important stage in Strauss’ stylistic development: after all, this was the first time that the composer chose to base a work on a play. Furthermore, he described the work as “a kind of symphonic poem, but not in the style of Liszt”. An observer might well find this postscript surprising, as Strauss took pains to provide a musical portrayal of the emotional world and development of both main characters from the play. Two themes dominate the work, which lasts almost 20 minutes: the hero referred to in the title, Macbeth, is portrayed by the lower instruments, and Lady Macbeth by the woodwinds – warlike, foreboding, and heroic sections alternate with blissfully gentle passages in thirds. The work, which is structurally based on the sonata form, contains a high level of dissonances that struck terror into the heart of not only father Strauss, but also colleague Hugo Wolff, who considered Macbeth to be a “dreadful” work. Nevertheless, Strauss refused to be put off; he simply changed the ending (creating a fading coda from a triumphal march written for Macduff), and otherwise proved himself deaf to all advice: “Macbeth fits in with Don Juan in the line of my development: it was published for anyone who is interested in this – I really couldn’t care less about the others.” Thus spoke a composer who was to self-confidently take a genre to new heights. As such, Macbeth was simply the beginning: of course, Strauss had taken a leaf out of Liszt’s book – and had even surpassed him, as he was capable of portraying the dramatic characters in a more subtle manner than Liszt had ever managed, thanks to his highly varied psychological treatment of the orchestra. Therefore, it is all the more astonishing that Macbeth is currently one of the least frequently performed orchestral works by Strauss.
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