Richard Strauss’s “Burleske”
Notes by TŌN cellist Christiaan Stefanus van Zyl
The Burleske in D minor was composed for piano and orchestra by Richard Strauss in 1885–86, as a mere 21-year-old. It offers a vivid perspective on the composer’s creative world on the verge of an artistic breakthrough. It serves as a prime example of Strauss’s impressive technical command and his emerging desire to forge a distinctive musical voice.
Burleske originated right after an encounter with Johannes Brahms and Strauss’s apprenticeship with the conductor Hans von Bülow. Strauss initially intended the solo for von Bülow, who dismissed it as highly complicated and unplayable. Strauss, therefore, refined the orchestration and clarified the textures in 1889. A distinct Brahmsian flavor is prevalent throughout the work’s themes and harmonic progressions. However, the structure of the work as a one-movement concert piece owes more to Liszt than to Brahms.
One of the most striking features of the Burleske is precisely the ambitious synthesis Strauss attempted to achieve between different styles and musical forms. The original idea was a scherzo-type composition, yet in its final form, it contains many serious, sentimental, and even dramatic elements besides playful ones. This ambivalence is evident already in the tonality of the piece: D minor, a traditionally “tragic” key since the days of Mozart, seems an unlikely choice for a piece called “Burleske.” Strauss clearly wanted to have it both ways; he seems to have striven to say everything in a single composition, while keeping a certain lightness of expression on top of it all. And he succeeded splendidly.
The piece opens in a strikingly unconventional way, introducing a theme with solo timpani. The orchestra soon joins in, and the piano quickly makes its entrance with the first of many playful and clever ideas, including one theme that eerily foreshadows a motif from Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel. The second melody, which emerges from the timpani that began the work, hints at a later Strauss composition: the opera Der Rosenkavalier.
Nearing the conclusion, a completely new theme appears in the strings—only loosely connected to earlier material—accompanied by shimmering piano arpeggios. After a final restatement of the opening piano idea, the initial timpani solo returns, bringing the Burleske to a close exactly as it began: with a solitary, unaccompanied D on the kettledrum.