Death and transfiguration
Death and Transfiguration op. 24 TrV 158 is a tone poem for large orchestra by Richard Strauss . He began work on the plant in 1888 and completed it on November 18, 1889. Death and Transfiguration was premiered under the direction of the composer on June 21, 1890 in Eisenach as part of the Tonkünstlerversammlung of the General German Music Association . Death and Transfiguration concludes a first group of tone poems ( Macbeth and Don Juan also belong to it ) . In the years that followed, Strauss worked for several years with his first opera Guntram. But because this was not very successful, he returned to composing tone poems in 1894/95; this second group begins with Till Eulenspiegel and ends with the Symphonia domestica .
A few years later, Strauss formulated the program of the piece as follows: "The patient lies asleep, breathing heavily and irregularly, in bed; friendly dreams conjure a smile on the face of the seriously suffering person; sleep becomes easier, he wakes up, terrible pain begin to torture him again, the fever shakes his limbs - as the attack comes to an end and the pain subsides, he remembers his past life: his childhood passes him by, his youth with his striving, his passions and then, while pain is already set in again, the light of his life's path appears to him, the idea of artistically representing the ideal that he has tried to realize, but which he could not achieve because it could not be accomplished by a human being, the hour of death is approaching, the soul leaves the body in order to find perfected in the eternal space of the universe, in the most glorious form, what it could not fulfill here below. "
After the completion of the composition, Strauss' mentor Alexander Ritter wrote a programmatic poem, which the composer placed in front of the score and which was expanded to include several stanzas for printing.
When choosing his subject, Strauss was inspired by Franz Liszt (whose symphonic poem Tasso is subtitled "Lamento e trionfo"). In addition, Strauss alludes to Ludwig van Beethoven's 5th Symphony in the key of his tone poem, C minor, which finally transitions into a transfigured C major .
To the music
The one-movement work is divided into an introductory largo, a troubled Allegro molto agitato and a concluding moderato (the music of the transfiguration). Death and Transfiguration is laid out as a free sonata movement, with the peculiarity, of course, that the central theme of the Transfiguration is only gradually developed and only fully sounds in the final section.
In the introduction, some central themes and motifs, but also sounds and rhythms (such as faltering drums) are presented; the hero's pulse is restless, but "friendly dreams" fulfill him. With the Allegro molto agitato (bar 67) the torture through "dreadful pain" begins programmatically, while the music is dominated by a longer main complex of themes in C minor, at the end of which (bar 163ff.), Embedded in a transition, the transfiguration theme is heard for the first time . The following quieter section (double line: meno mosso, ma semper alla breve, T.186) functions musically like a multi-part secondary theme: the patient remembers his childhood and youth. This is followed, as it were, as a development, passionate music (double bar : appassionato ), the development of which, however, is repeatedly halted by the faltering trumpets and drums. The highlights are further appearances of the Transfiguration theme, which is already more clearly formed: first in A flat major (T. 311), then in A major (T. 325) and finally in D flat major (T. 346). Finally, the development ends in a greatly shortened recapitulation (bar 356) of the introduction as well as the main Allegro theme (bar 369): Of course, the music remains harmoniously suspended and only reaches its real goal with the beginning of the transfiguration music in the coda (T. 387) which Strauss with fanfare has marked memorable competition shots as a symbol of death. Now earlier themes return in a lengthy increase, until the Transfiguration theme finally sounds in full form: at first calmly (bar 430), later in a large halo of sound (bar 469).
literature
- Walter Werbeck: The tone poems by Richard Strauss , Tutzing 1996
- Mathias Hansen (Ed.): Richard Strauss. The symphonic seals (paperback) Bärenreiter 2003, ISBN 978-3761814680