Richard Strauss’s “An Alpine Symphony”
Notes by Christopher H. Gibbs, James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Music, Bard College Conservatory of Music
During the early years of the 20th century, Europe’s two great conductor-composers observed each other largely from a distance—with bemusement, friendly regard, and some envy. Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler maintained a sincere respect for each other’s artistic gifts and both conducted and promoted the other’s works. And when Mahler died in 1911, at the age of 50, the slightly younger Strauss—who would live for nearly four more decades—was moved and saddened. It was shortly after that he set to work on a piece begun earlier and that can ultimately be viewed as a tribute to Mahler’s spirit. An Alpine Symphony marked Strauss’s return to instrumental music after a decade devoted primarily to opera. It was his first piece sporting this genre-title since his Symphonia domestica (1903) and reveals an affinity to the natural world a kin to that found in many of Mahler’s symphonies. It is a hymn to sweeping mountain landscapes, sweet meadows, and terrifying spring storms—in sum, to the grandeur of nature itself.
The initial idea had occurred to Strauss many years earlier after he and some friends got lost on the way up a mountain and then drenched in a torrent on the way down. Once home, Strauss recorded his musical impressions of the experience. He later told his friend Ludwig Thuille that these early sketches “naturally contained a lot of nonsense and dramatic Wagnerian tone-painting.” For some years he toyed with the idea of a symphony and in 1900 informed his parents of a work that was gestating that “would begin with a sunrise in Switzerland.”
After Strauss heard of Mahler’s death, he wrote in his diary: “The death of this aspiring, idealistic, energetic artist is a grave loss. … As a Jew, Mahler was still able to find exaltation in Christianity. . . I shall call my alpine symphony ‘The Antichrist’ for it has: moral regeneration through one’s own efforts, liberation through work, adoration of eternal, magnificent Nature.” Strauss composed most of the piece in his mountain chalet in 1914–15 and conducted the premiere in October 1915 with the Dresden Hofkapelle Orchestra in Berlin. The vast one-movement composition, which includes some of Strauss’s most vivid tone-painting, calls for an enormous orchestra and lasts longer than any of his other orchestral compositions. He cast it in 23 continuous tableaux, each carefully titled so as to recount the tale of the youthful mountain adventure.