The Burleske in D minor is a composition for piano and orchestra written by Richard Strauss in 1885-86, when he was 21.
Background
Original title and dedication
The work's original title was Scherzo in D minor, and it was written for Hans von Bülow, who had appointed Strauss assistant conductor of the Meiningen Orchestra. However, von Bülow considered it a "complicated piece of nonsense" and refused to learn it. He said the piano part was "Lisztian" and "unplayable", particularly for a pianist with a small handspan. Strauss rehearsed the work with the Meiningen Orchestra, conducting and playing the solo part himself, but then set it aside. He wrote to von Bülow: "iven an outstanding pianist, and a first-rate conductor, perhaps the whole thing will not turn out to be the unalloyed nonsense I took it for after the first rehearsal. After the first run-through, I was totally discouraged."
Renaming, rededication and premiere
In 1889, Strauss became acquainted with Eugen d'Albert, who liked the work, although he suggested some cuts and changes to the piano part. Strauss rededicated the revised work to d'Albert, who premiered it under its new title Burleske, at a convention of the General German Music Association at Eisenach on 21 June 1890, in the same concert as the premiere of Strauss's Death and Transfiguration. The word "Burleske" translates as "farce" or "mockery".
Reaction
Von Bülow was still not impressed. In a letter to Johannes Brahms in January 1891, he wrote: "Strauss's Burleske decidedly has some genius in it, but in other respects it is horrifying." Despite this, he conducted the work that month in Berlin, with Eugen d'Albert as soloist. Strauss was offered a handsome sum by a publisher for the rights to the work, but he was still not convinced of its merits, so he declined. He was no doubt influenced in his own opinion of the work by von Bülow's opinion of it. A quarter of a century later he wrote about von Bülow: "For anyone who ever heard him play Beethoven or conduct Wagner, who attended one of his piano lessons or observed him in orchestra rehearsal, he inevitably became the model of all the shining virtues of a performing artist, and his touching sympathy for me, his influence on the development of my artistic abilities, were the decisive factors in my career."
Publication
However, in 1894, Strauss agreed to publication of the Burleske, although it took him a long time to regard it with great favour. It eventually became one of his favourite works, and he programmed it in his last concert in London with the Philharmonia Orchestrain September 1947, along with Don Juan, the Symphonia Domestica and the waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier. Strauss never allocated an opus number to the work, but the opus number 11 has often come to be associated with it, although Strauss gave that number to his Horn Concerto No. 1 in E. It appears as number 85 in the catalogue by Erich Herrmann Mueller von Asow, and number 145 in that by Franz Trenner.
The piece starts with a theme introduced on timpani and answered by the orchestra. The piano then enters in a state of high excitement. A second, more lyrical Brahmsian theme emerges, followed by waltz-like measures not unlike the waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier. The work ends quietly, again on the timpani. It takes about 20 minutes to perform. The piece is scored for piano solo and an orchestra of piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B-flat, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.
