Richard Strauss’s “Don Juan”
Notes by TŌN bassist Zacherie Small
At the young age of 24, Richard Strauss composed the tone poem Don Juan; his first major work. Strauss drew inspiration from the poem written by Nikalaus Lenau of the same name which he cited. He composed this tone poem not too long after he conducted Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Munich. Strauss put a preface in the published score with extracts from Lenau’s poem.
“The charmed circle of many kinds of beautiful, stimulating femininity . . . I should like to traverse them in a storm of pleasure, and die of a kiss upon the lips of the last woman.” –Nikolaus Lenau
Though Strauss prefaced this quote, he never provided a detailed plot for this tone poem, which leaves the narrative to be largely interpreted by the listener. Strauss chose in Don Juan to take the opposite approach of what Franz Liszt does in his symphonic poems by shaping the musical form around the programmatic material. The overall outline of this piece is to showcase Don Juan’s story with themes of heroism, love, disillusionment, and tragedy.
Don Juan opens in dazzling fashion with an upward orchestral flourish and the strings’ introduction of the heroic theme representing the main character. What follows is a series of episodes portraying Don Juan’s many conquests. Then, once it emerges that Don Juan will conclude in triumph, Strauss shows the theme reminiscent of his end. The flurry of sounds slams to a halt and the orchestra’s problematic repose is pierced by the trumpets’ dissonant interjection. It all comes to an end with three pianissimo chords that seal Don Juan’s fate. The optimistic protagonist’s quest of the ideal moment ends in a duel where Don Juan dies. Victory has come to seem as pointless as everything else in his reality.