Richard Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony), Op. 64

Introduction

An Alpine Symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie), Op. 64, is a tone poem written by German composer Richard Strauss in 1915. Though labelled as a symphony by the composer, this piece forgoes the conventions of the traditional multi-movement symphony and consists of twenty-two continuous sections of music. The story of An Alpine Symphony depicts the experiences of eleven hours (from daybreak just before dawn to the following nightfall) spent climbing an Alpine mountain. An Alpine Symphony is one of Strauss's largest non-operatic works in terms of performing forces: the score calls for about 125 players in total. A typical performance usually lasts around 50 minutes.

This piece was the last tone poem written by Strauss, a genre which gained the composer popularity in the late 1880s and 1890s with works such as Don Juan (1888), Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (1895), Also Sprach Zarathustra (1896), Don Quixote (1897), and A Hero's Life (1897–98). By the time of An Alpine Symphony's composition, however, Strauss had turned his attention away from the genre of tone poems and had become well-established as one of the period's greatest operatic composers.

Though one of Strauss's lesser-performed works (for a number of reasons, including the great number of musicians required), the piece is popular enough that in 1981 a recording of An Alpine Symphony made with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic became one of the first compact discs to be pressed.

History

Composition

Strauss's An Alpine Symphony was completed in 1915, eleven years after the completion of its immediate predecessor in the genre of the tone poem, Symphonia Domestica. In 1911 Strauss wrote that he was "torturing [himself] with a symphony – a job that, when all's said and done, amuses me even less than chasing cockroaches".

One point of influence comes from Strauss's love of nature. As a boy, Strauss experienced an Alpine adventure similar to the one described in his An Alpine Symphony: he and a group of climbers lost their way heading up a mountain and were caught in a storm and soaked on the way down. Strauss loved the mountains so much that in 1908 he built a home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, that boasted stunning views of the Alps. This interest in nature can also point to Strauss's followings of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

The original drafts of An Alpine Symphony began in 1899. It was to be written in memory of the Swiss painter, Karl Stauffer-Bern, and the work was originally titled Künstlertragödie (Tragedy of an Artist). This fell by the wayside, but Strauss began a new four-movement work called Die Alpen (The Alps) in which he used parts of the original 1899 draft. The first movement of Die Alpen evolved into the core of An Alpine Symphony. Sketches were made, but Strauss eventually left the work unfinished.

Years later, upon the death of his good friend Gustav Mahler in 1911, Strauss decided to revisit the work. In his journal the day after he learned of Mahler's death, Strauss wrote:

The death of this aspiring, idealistic, energetic artist [is] a grave loss ... Mahler, the Jew, could achieve elevation in Christianity. As an old man the hero Wagner returned to it under the influence of Schopenhauer. It is clear to me that the German nation will achieve new creative energy only by liberating itself from Christianity ... I shall call my alpine symphony: Der Antichrist, since it represents: moral purification through one's own strength, liberation through work, worship of eternal, magnificent nature.

The resulting draft of the work was to be a two-part work titled Der Antichrist: Eine Alpensinfonie; however, Strauss never finished the second part. Instead, he dropped the first half of the title (named after an essay by Nietzsche written in 1888) and called his single-movement work simply An Alpine Symphony. After so many years of intermittent composition, once Strauss began work on the piece in earnest the progress was quick. Strauss even went so far as to remark that he composed An Alpine Symphony "just as a cow gives milk". Orchestration for the work began on November 1, 1914 and was completed by the composer only three months later. In reference to this, his final purely symphonic work, Strauss famously commented at the dress rehearsal for An Alpine Symphony's premiere that at last he had learned to orchestrate. The entire work was finished on February 8, 1915. The score was dedicated "in profound gratitude" to Count Nicolaus Seebach, director of the Royal Opera in Dresden, where four of the six operas Strauss had written by that time had been premiered.

Premiere and reception

An Alpine Symphony was premiered on October 28, 1915, with Strauss conducting the orchestra of the Dresden Hofkapelle in Berlin. The performance provoked mixed reactions. Some even called it "cinema music". Strauss was happy with how this piece turned out, however, and wrote to a friend in 1915 that "you must hear the Alpine Symphony on December 5; it really is quite a good piece!"

It is generally believed^{[citation needed]} that the American premiere of An Alpine Symphony was performed by Ernst Kunwald leading the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on 25 April 1916. Kunwald and certain "influential Cincinnatians" had taken great pains to get the piece from wartime Germany and to be the first orchestra to perform Strauss's new work in America. As a result, An Alpine Symphony had originally been scheduled to be premiered in Cincinnati on 4 May of that year. However, when Leopold Stokowski suddenly announced that he would premiere the work with the Philadelphia Orchestra on 28 April, Kunwald and the Cincinnati Orchestra immediately began preparation of the piece. On 25 April the orchestra was finally able to rehearse An Alpine Symphony all the way through at a rehearsal in Cincinnati and, two days later, sent word to local papers inviting patrons to a performance of the piece that very day at noon. Ultimately, two thousand people attended this unofficial American premiere of the work. This premiere took place a little over 24 hours before the Philadelphia performance.

First recording

Oskar Fried recorded the work in 1925 with the Berlin Philharmonic. Strauss himself conducted the Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra in the work's next recording, in 1936. His more ambitious 1941 recording, with the Bavarian State Orchestra, utilized the full orchestral forces called for by the score (see below) and was later issued on LP and CD. Due to the wide dynamic range of the music, the symphony became very popular for high fidelity and stereophonic recordings, beginning with Karl Böhm's 1957 recording. The first test pressing of a compact disc was of An Alpine Symphony.

Instrumentation

Strauss scored An Alpine Symphony for the large orchestra:

• Woodwinds: 4 flutes (flutes 3 and 4 double piccolos), 3 oboes (oboe 3 doubles English horn), heckelphone, clarinet in E-flat, 2 clarinets in B-flat, bass clarinet (doubles clarinet in C), 4 bassoons (bassoon 4 doubles contrabassoon)
• Brass: 8 French horns (horns 5–8 double Wagner tubas), 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 2 tubas, 12 offstage horns, 2 offstage trumpets, 2 offstage trombones
• Percussion: timpani (2 players), snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, cowbells, wind machine, thunder machine, glockenspiel
• Keyboards: celesta, organ
• Strings: 2 harps, 18 violins I, 16 violins II, 12 violas, 10 cellos, 8 double basses.

Strauss further suggested that the harps and some woodwind instruments should be doubled if possible, and indicated that the stated number of string players should be regarded as a minimum.

The use of "Samuel's Aerophon" is suggested in the instrumentation listing. (Strauss probably misunderstood the name – it was originally called the Aerophor.) This long-extinct device, invented by Dutch flautist Bernard Samuels in 1911 to assist wind players in sustaining long notes without interruption, was a foot-pump with an air-hose stretching to the player's mouth. However, modern wind players make use of the technique of circular breathing, whereby it is possible to inhale through the nose while still sustaining the sound by matching the blowing pressure in the mouth. This technique is in fact centuries old and its ubiquity is probably the reason why the Aerophor never caught on – it really wasn't needed.

Program

Although performed as one continuous movement, An Alpine Symphony has a distinct program which describes each phase of the Alpine journey in chronological order. The score includes the following section titles (not numbered in the score):

1. Nacht (Night)
2. Sonnenaufgang (Sunrise)
3. Der Anstieg (The Ascent)
4. Eintritt in den Wald (Entry into the Forest)
5. Wanderung neben dem Bache (Wandering by the Brook)
6. Am Wasserfall (At the Waterfall)
7. Erscheinung (Apparition)
8. Auf blumigen Wiesen (On Flowering Meadows)
9. Auf der Alm (On the Alpine Pasture)
10. Durch Dickicht und Gestrüpp auf Irrwegen (Through Thickets and Undergrowth on the Wrong Path)
11. Auf dem Gletscher (On the Glacier)
12. Gefahrvolle Augenblicke (Dangerous Moments)
13. Auf dem Gipfel (On the Summit)
14. Vision (Vision)
15. Nebel steigen auf (Mists Rise)
16. Die Sonne verdüstert sich allmählich (The Sun Gradually Becomes Obscured)
17. Elegie (Elegy)
18. Stille vor dem Sturm (Calm Before the Storm)
19. Gewitter und Sturm, Abstieg (Thunder and Tempest, Descent)
20. Sonnenuntergang (Sunset)
21. Ausklang (Quiet Settles)
22. Nacht (Night)

In terms of formal analysis, attempts have been made to group these sections together to form a "gigantic Lisztian symphonic form, with elements of an introduction, opening allegro, scherzo, slow movement, finale, and epilogue." In general, however, it is believed that comparisons to any kind of traditional symphonic form are secondary to the strong sense of structure created by the piece's musical pictorialism and detailed narrative.