Editing Richard Strauss (section)

==Music==
[[File:Componist Richard Strauss-29152.ogv|upright=1.35|thumb|thumbtime=0:08|Strauss in Amsterdam (short film 1924)]]
{{see also|List of compositions by Richard Strauss}}

===Solo and chamber works===
Some of Strauss's first compositions were solo instrumental and chamber works. These pieces include early compositions for piano solo in a conservative harmonic style, many of which are lost: two piano trios (1877 and 1878), a string quartet (1881), a [[Sonata for piano in B minor, Op. 5|piano sonata]] (1882), a [[Cello Sonata (Strauss)|cello sonata]] (1883), a [[Piano Quartet (Strauss)|piano quartet]] (1885), a [[Violin Sonata (Strauss)|violin sonata]] (1888), as well as a serenade (1882) and a longer suite (1884), both scored for double wind quintet plus two additional horns and contrabassoon.

After 1890, Strauss composed very infrequently for chamber groups, his energies being almost completely absorbed with large-scale orchestral works and operas. Four of his chamber pieces are actually arrangements of portions of his operas, including the ''Daphne-Etude'' for solo violin and the String Sextet, which is the overture to his final opera ''[[Capriccio (opera)|Capriccio]]''. His last independent chamber work, an Allegretto in E major for violin and piano, dates from 1948.

He also composed two large-scale works for wind ensemble during this period: Sonatina No. 1 "From an Invalid's Workshop" (1943) and Sonatina No. 2 "Happy Workshop" (1946)—both scored for double wind quintet plus two additional horns, a third clarinet in C, bassett horn, bass clarinet, and contrabassoon.

===Tone poems and other orchestral works===
{{Main|Tone poems (Strauss)}}
{{Listen|type=music|image=none|help=no|filename=Richard Strauss Don Juan excerpt.mp3|title=Excerpt from ''Don Juan'' (1:48)|description=Performed by [[Dmitri Kitayenko]] with the [[Frankfurt Radio Symphony]]}}
Strauss wrote two early symphonies: [[Symphony No. 1 (Strauss)|Symphony No. 1]] (1880) and [[Symphony No. 2 (Strauss)|Symphony No. 2]] (1884). However, Strauss's style began to truly develop and change when, in 1885, he met [[Alexander Ritter]], a noted composer and violinist, and the husband of one of Richard Wagner's nieces. It was Ritter who persuaded Strauss to abandon the conservative style of his youth and begin writing [[tone poem]]s. He also introduced Strauss to the essays of Wagner and the writings of [[Arthur Schopenhauer]]. Strauss went on to conduct one of Ritter's operas, and at Strauss's request Ritter later wrote a poem describing the events depicted in Strauss's tone poem ''Death and Transfiguration''.
The new influences from Ritter resulted in what is widely regarded{{sfn|Kennedy|1999|p=69}} as Strauss's first piece to show his mature personality, the tone poem ''[[Don Juan (Strauss)|Don Juan]]'' (1888), which displays a new kind of virtuosity in its bravura orchestral manner. Strauss went on to write a series of increasingly ambitious tone poems: ''[[Death and Transfiguration]]'' (1889), ''[[Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks]]'' (1895), ''[[Also sprach Zarathustra]]'' (1896), ''[[Don Quixote (Strauss)|Don Quixote]]'' (1897), ''[[Ein Heldenleben]]'' (1898), ''[[Symphonia Domestica]]'' (1903) and ''[[An Alpine Symphony]]'' (1911–1915). One commentator has observed of these works that "no orchestra could exist without his tone poems, written to celebrate the glories of the post-Wagnerian symphony orchestra."<ref name="Kennedy 1999, p. 395" />

[[James Hepokoski]] notes a shift in Strauss's technique in the tone poems, occurring between 1892 and 1893. It was after this point that Strauss rejected the philosophy of Schopenhauer and began more forcefully critiquing the institution of the symphony and the symphonic poem, thereby differentiating the second cycle of tone poems from the first.

===Concertos===
{{Listen|type=music|image=none|help=no|filename=Richard Strauss - Neal O'Doan - Burleske.ogg|title=''Burleske''|description=Performed by Neal O'Doan with the [[Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra]]}}
Strauss's output of works for solo instrument or instruments with orchestra was fairly extensive. The most famous include two concertos for horn, which are still part of the standard repertoire of most horn soloists—[[Horn Concerto No. 1 (Strauss)|Horn Concerto No. 1]] (1883) and [[Horn Concerto No. 2 (Strauss)|Horn Concerto No. 2]] (1942); the [[Romanze for Cello and orchestra (Strauss)|Romanze for cello and orchestra]] (1883); a [[Violin Concerto (Strauss)|Violin Concerto in D minor]] (1882); the [[Burleske|''Burleske'' for piano and orchestra]] (1885, revised 1889); the tone poem ''Don Quixote'' for cello, viola and orchestra (1897); the well-known late [[Oboe Concerto (Strauss)|Oboe Concerto in D major]] (1945); and the [[Duet concertino for clarinet and bassoon]] with string orchestra, which was one of his last works (1948).

===Opera===
{{See also|List of operas by Richard Strauss}}
Around the end of the 19th century, Strauss turned his attention to opera. His first two attempts in the genre, ''[[Guntram (opera)|Guntram]]'' (1894) and ''[[Feuersnot]]'' (1901), were controversial works; ''Guntram'' was the first significant critical failure of Strauss's career, and ''Feuersnot'' was considered obscene by some critics.<ref>Tim Ashley, "[https://www.theguardian.com/reviews/story/0,3604,404766,00.html Feuersnot]". ''[[The Guardian]]''. London. 30 November 2000. Retrieved 27 October 2007.</ref>

[[File:Schmutzer-Richard Strauss.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Richard Strauss engraved by Ferdinand Schmutzer (1922)]]
In 1905, Strauss produced ''[[Salome (opera)|Salome]]'', a somewhat [[Consonance and dissonance|dissonant]] modernist opera based on the [[Salome (play)|play]] by [[Oscar Wilde]], which produced a passionate reaction from audiences. The premiere was a major success, with the artists taking more than 38 curtain calls.<ref>Derrick Puffett ''et al'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=ABrNsZOXIr4C ''Richard Strauss: "Salome"''] (1989), p. 4</ref> Many later performances of the opera were also successful, not only with the general public but also with Strauss's peers: [[Maurice Ravel]] said that ''Salome'' was "stupendous";{{sfn|Kennedy|1999|p=145}} [[Gustav Mahler]] described it as "a live volcano, a subterranean fire".{{sfn|Kennedy|1999|p=149}} Strauss reputedly financed his house in [[Garmisch-Partenkirchen]] completely from the revenues generated by the opera.<ref name=wildean>{{cite journal|jstor=48569305|title=Richard Strauss's ''Salome'' and Oscar Wilde's French Text|journal=The Wildean|pages=63–73|number=52|date=January 2018|author=[[James Morwood]]}}</ref> As with the later ''Elektra'', ''Salome'' features an extremely taxing lead soprano role. Strauss often remarked that he preferred writing for the female voice, which is apparent in these two sister operas—the male parts are almost entirely smaller roles, included only to supplement the soprano's performance.

Strauss's next opera was ''[[Elektra (opera)|Elektra]]'' (1909), which took his use of dissonance even further, in particular with the [[Elektra chord]]. ''Elektra'' was also the first opera in which Strauss collaborated with the poet [[Hugo von Hofmannsthal]] as his librettist. The two subsequently worked together on numerous occasions. For his later works with Hofmannsthal, Strauss moderated his harmonic language: he used a more lush, melodic late-Romantic style based on Wagnerian chromatic harmonies that he had used in his tone poems, with much less dissonance, and exhibiting immense virtuosity in orchestral writing and tone color. This resulted in operas such as ''[[Der Rosenkavalier]]'' (1911) having great public success. Strauss continued to produce operas at regular intervals until 1942. With Hofmannsthal he created ''[[Ariadne auf Naxos]]'' (1912), ''[[Die Frau ohne Schatten]]'' (1919), ''[[Die ägyptische Helena]]'' (1928), and ''[[Arabella]]'' (1933). For ''[[Intermezzo (opera)|Intermezzo]]'' (1924) Strauss provided his own libretto. ''[[Die schweigsame Frau]]'' (1935) was composed with [[Stefan Zweig]] as librettist; ''[[Friedenstag]]'' (1935–36) and ''[[Daphne (opera)|Daphne]]'' (1937) both had a libretto by [[Joseph Gregor]] and Stefan Zweig; and ''[[Die Liebe der Danae]]'' (1940) was with Joseph Gregor. Strauss's final opera, ''[[Capriccio (opera)|Capriccio]]'' (1942), had a libretto by [[Clemens Krauss]], although the genesis for it came from Stefan Zweig and Joseph Gregor.
<!-- 15 April 2021: Commented out because Operabase doesn't produce those statistics any more.
According to statistics compiled by [[Operabase]], in number of operas performed worldwide over the five seasons from 2008/09 to 2012/13, Strauss was the second-most performed 20th-century opera composer, ahead of [[Benjamin Britten]] and behind only [[Giacomo Puccini]].<ref name=operabase200820013>[http://operabase.com/top.cgi?lang=en& The five seasons 2008/9 to 2012/13: Composers]. [[Operabase]]. (Note: "Composer and opera tables are based on counts of performance runs over the five seasons from 2008/09 to 2012/13, i.e. how many times a work was programmed not the number of performances."){{Better source|date=June 2020|reason=Operabase doesn't produce those statistics any more.}}</ref> Strauss tied with [[George Frideric Handel|Handel]] as the eighth most-performed opera composer from any century over those five seasons.<ref name=operabase200820013 /> Over the five seasons from 2008/09 to 2012/13, Strauss's top five most performed operas were ''Salome'', ''Ariadne auf Naxos'', ''Der Rosenkavalier'', ''Elektra'', and ''Die Frau ohne Schatten''.<ref>[http://operabase.com/top.cgi?lang=en&break=0&show=opera&no=100&nat= The five seasons 2008/9 to 2012/13: Operas (expanded)]. [[Operabase]]. (Note: "Return to main statistics page for an explanation of the figures". The main statistics page says: "Composer and opera tables are based on counts of performance runs over the five seasons from 2008/09 to 2012/13, i.e. how many times a work was programmed not the number of performances."){{Better source|date=June 2020|reason=Operabase doesn't produce those statistics any more.}}</ref> The most recent figures covering the five seasons 2011/12 to 2015/16 show that Strauss was the tenth most performed opera composer, with ''Der Rosenkavalier'' overtaking ''Salome'' to become his most performed opera (the ranking of the other four remains the same).<ref>[http://operabase.com/top.cgi?lang=en&splash=t opera base 2017], extracted 17 April 2017.{{Better source|date=June 2020|reason=Operabase doesn't produce those statistics any more.}}</ref> -->

===Lieder===
Strauss was a prolific composer of [[lied]]er. He often composed them with the voice of his wife in mind. His lieder were written for voice and piano, and he orchestrated several of them after the fact. In 1894–1895, around the age of 30, he published several well-known songs including "[[Ruhe, meine Seele!]]", "[[Cäcilie (Strauss)|Cäcilie]]", "[[Morgen!]]", "[[Heimliche Aufforderung]]", and "[[Traum durch die Dämmerung]]". In 1918, after a long hiatus devoted to opera, he wrote [[Sechs Lieder, Op. 68 (Strauss)|''Sechs Lieder'', Op. 68]], also called ''Brentano Lieder''. He completed his works in the genre in 1948 with ''[[Four Last Songs]]'' for soprano and orchestra. He reportedly composed these with [[Kirsten Flagstad]] in mind and she gave the first performance, which was recorded. Strauss's songs have always been popular with audiences and performers, and are generally considered by musicologists—along with many of his other compositions—to be masterpieces.