Richard Strauss- Four Last Songs (Score)

Hände, laßt von allem Tun, Stirn, vergiß du alles Denken, Alle meine Sinne nun Wollen sich in Schlummer senken. Richard Strauss, the mysterious figure of the late Romantic/early Modern eras, had nothing and no one in the late 1940s but his wife, forever his companion, and his music. As Germany crumbled around him, he fled to Switzerland after the war, doing nothing really except going on a London tour to conduct. He was left to sit with his own mind, which was growing closer to death. In terms of his contemporaries, there isn’t much to say. The remnants of the French Impressionists admired his avant-garde side, mostly present in the mid to late 1900s decade, but they thought he was now stale. Stravinsky despised him. The Second Viennese School pitied him. They simply could not understand how such a man, with a savant-like knowledge of harmony, never truly embraced atonality after Elektra. In order to understand Richard Strauss, one must first understand his value of tonal