Strauss Richard Georg, German composer and conductor, was born in Munich on 11 June 1864 and had a well-to-do childhood, his father was the first horn at the Munich Court orchestra and his mother belonged to a very rich family.
He began to study music as a child, at six he began to compose, and later received lessons from the master of the chapel Friedrich Wilhelm Meyer, under whose guidance he created the first works, first only for piano and song, then tracks in form major: concerts or concert pieces, a large sonata, a string quartet, two symphonies and a serenade for winds. The passion in the study of instruments in his adolescence developed in him an exceptional technical skill.
Heir to the tradition of Listz, Berlioz and Wagner, Strauss, during his artistic life, developed an instrumental language rich in complex conceptual contents and absolutely original orchestral effects, supported by a strong dramatic commitment.
In 1882 Strauss enrolled at the University of Monaco, but left in 1883 to undertake a journey of art, which led him among other things to Dresden and Berlin, where he made important contacts especially with the well-known director of the Meininger Hofkapelle, Hans von Bülow who, in 1885, assumed him as choirmaster of the Meininger Hof and inherited the commission. when von Bülow left him.
In style, the first production, consisting of symphonic poems, such as "Don Juan", "Death and Transfiguration" (1889), traced the genre of Brahms or Schumann, but then Strawsssi evolved into Wagnerian style: after some initial difficulties (of the first symphonic poem, "Macbeth", there are at least three versions of it), Strauss found his unmistakable style with "Don Juan" (1888-89) and above all "Tod und Verklärung" (1888-90), which made him famous quickly. Richard Strauss portrait
Of the second series of symphonic poems, it is "Also sprach Zarathustra" (1896), whose initial lines are now famous thanks to the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" and represent one of the most exploited music in advertising and cinema (in 1972 the jazz musician Eumir Deodato recorded a "jazz-fusion" version in the wake of the famous film, which met with great success all over the world).
Strauss also composed ballet music: "Josephslegende" (1914) and "Schlagobers" (1924) and works of nostalgic classicism such as "The Knight of the Rose" (1911), "Arianna a Naxsos" (1912-1916), but the real international triumph and fame as an operatic composer, however, came to Strauss with the two operas "Salomé" (1905) and "Elektra" (first performance in Dresden in 1909).
Until 1930, Strauss wrote numerous works, but his style flattened and the great work "Die Frau ohne Schatten" "(The woman without a soul 1919), marks the final point of a dramatic-experimental phase in his production.
In the following years, lighter and classicist style works were born, such as "Capriccio and Daphne", where the dramaturgy of musical theater remains and almost all of his works are successes.
The role of Strauss in the age of Nazism remains controversial, from 1933 to 1935, he held the presidency of the Reich Musical Chamber, although with purely symbolic and celebratory tasks, some opinions report the total apoliticalness of Strauss, and argue that he never cooperated with the power as some of his nephews were, moreover, half Jews.
In 1948 Strauss completed his last major work, "Vier letzte Lieder", for high male voices and orchestra (depicted in 1950), which certainly represents his most famous vocal work and died in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on 8 September 1949.