Ein Heldenleben


Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, is a tone poem by Richard Strauss. The work was completed in 1898. It was his eighth work in the genre, and exceeded any of its predecessors in its orchestral demands. Generally agreed to be autobiographical in nature despite contradictory statements on the matter by the composer, the work contains more than thirty quotations from Strauss's earlier works, including Also sprach Zarathustra, Till Eulenspiegel, Don Quixote, Don Juan, and Death and Transfiguration.

Background

Strauss began work on the piece while staying in a Bavarian mountain resort in July 1898. He proposed to write a heroic work in the mould of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony: "It is entitled 'A Hero's Life', and while it has no funeral march, it does have lots of horns, horns being quite the thing to express heroism. Thanks to the healthy country air, my sketch has progressed well and I hope to finish by New Year's Day."
Strauss worked on Ein Heldenleben and another tone poem, Don Quixote, during 1898. He regarded the two as complementary, saying they were conceived as "direct pendants" to one another. There was speculation before the premiere about the identity of the hero. Strauss was equivocal: he commented "I'm no hero: I'm not made for battle", and in a programme note he wrote that subject of the piece was "not a single poetical or historical figure, but rather a more general and free ideal of great and manly heroism." On the other hand, in the words of the critic Richard Freed:

Structure and analysis

The work, which lasts about fifty minutes, is through-composed: performed without breaks, except for a dramatic grand pause at the end of the first movement. The movements are titled as follows :
  1. "Der Held"
  2. "Des Helden Widersacher"
  3. "Des Helden Gefährtin"
  4. "Des Helden Walstatt"
  5. "Des Helden Friedenswerke"
  6. "Des Helden Weltflucht und Vollendung"
Ein Heldenleben employs the technique of leitmotif that Richard Wagner used, but almost always as elements of its enlarged sonata-rondo symphonic structure.

Instrumentation

The work is scored for a large orchestra consisting of piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn/cor anglais, E clarinet, 2 soprano clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 8 horns in F, E and E, 3 trumpets in B and 2 trumpets in E, 3 trombones, tenor tuba in B, tuba, timpani, bass drum, 2 snare drums, cymbals, tenor drum, tam-tam, triangle, 2 harps, and strings, including an extensive solo violin part.

Dedication and performances

Strauss dedicated the piece to the 27-year-old Willem Mengelberg and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. However, it was premiered by the Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester on March 3, 1899 in Frankfurt, with the composer conducting. The first American performance was a year later, performed by the Chicago Symphony, conducted by Theodore Thomas. The work did not reach England until 1902, when the composer conducted Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra.
Béla Bartók wrote a piano reduction of the piece in 1902, performing it on January 23, 1903, in Vienna. The conductor Joolz Gale was more recently given permission to arrange the work for chamber orchestra, which was commissioned and premiered by ensemble mini on October 16, 2014, in Berlin.

Reception

The German critics responded to Strauss's caricatures of them. One of them called the piece "as revolting a picture of this revolting man as one might ever encounter". Otto Floersheim wrote a damning review in the Musical Courier, calling the "alleged symphony... revolutionary in every sense of the word". He continued, "he climax of everything that is ugly, cacophonous, blatant and erratic, the most perverse music I ever heard in all my life, is reached in the chapter 'The Hero's Battlefield'. The man who wrote this outrageously hideous noise, no longer deserving of the word music, is either a lunatic, or he is rapidly approaching idiocy." The critic in The New York Times after the New York premiere in 1900 was more circumspect. He admitted that posterity might well mock his response to the piece, but that although "there are passages of true, glorious, overwhelming beauty... one is often thrown into astonishment and confusion". Henry Wood, with whose orchestra Strauss gave the British premiere, thought the piece "wonderfully beautiful".
In modern times, the work still divides critical opinion. According to Bryan Gilliam in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, this is "mainly because its surface elements have been overemphasized." In Gilliam's view:
Whatever the critics might have thought, the work rapidly became a standard part of the orchestral repertoire. It has been performed 41 times at the BBC Proms since its premier there in 1903.

Recordings

There are many recordings of Ein Heldenleben, with three conducted by the composer himself. Important recordings include the following:
OrchestraConductorDateLabel
Staatskapelle BerlinRichard Strauss1926Classical Recordings Quarterly
New York PhilharmonicWillem Mengelberg1928Pearl Records
Bayerisches StaatsorchesterRichard Strauss1941Deutsche Grammophon; Dutton Vocalion
NBC Symphony OrchestraArturo Toscanini1941RCA; Naxos Historical
Royal Concertgebouw OrchestraWillem Mengelberg1942Teldec; Naxos Historical
Wiener PhilharmonikerRichard Strauss1944Preiser Records
Royal Philharmonic OrchestraSir Thomas Beecham1947Testament; Biddulph
Pittsburgh Symphony OrchestraFritz Reiner1947RCA
Wiener PhilharmonikerClemens Krauss1952Decca
Minneapolis Symphony OrchestraAntal Doráti1953Mercury; Pristine Classics
Chicago Symphony OrchestraFritz Reiner1954RCA
Staatskapelle DresdenKarl Böhm1957Deutsche Grammophon
Berliner PhilharmonikerHerbert von Karajan1959Deutsche Grammophon
Philadelphia OrchestraEugene Ormandy1959CBS
Royal Philharmonic OrchestraSir Thomas Beecham1959EMI
Philadelphia OrchestraEugene Ormandy1960Sony Classical
San Francisco SymphonyPierre Monteux1960RCA
London Symphony OrchestraSir John Barbirolli1969EMI
Los Angeles PhilharmonicZubin Mehta1969Decca
Royal Concertgebouw OrchestraBernard Haitink1970Philips
London Symphony OrchestraSir John Barbirolli1970BBC Classics
Staatskapelle DresdenRudolf Kempe1972EMI
Berliner PhilharmonikerHerbert von Karajan1974EMI
Wiener PhilharmonikerKarl Böhm1975Deutsche Grammophon
Wiener PhilharmonikerSir Georg Solti1978Decca
Philadelphia OrchestraEugene Ormandy1980RCA
Cleveland OrchestraVladimir Ashkenazy1984Decca
Berliner PhilharmonikerHerbert von Karajan1985Deutsche Grammophon
Wiener PhilharmonikerAndré Previn1988Telarc
Staatskapelle DresdenGiuseppe Sinopoli1992Deutsche Grammophon
Cleveland OrchestraChristoph von Dohnanyi1992Decca
Wiener PhilharmonikerCarlos Kleiber1993Sony
San Francisco SymphonyHerbert Blomstedt1994Decca
Minnesota OrchestraEiji Oue1998Reference Recordings
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen RundfunksLorin Maazel1999RCA Red Seal
Czech Philharmonic OrchestraVladimir Ashkenazy2000Exton
WDR Symphony CologneSemyon Bychkov2001Avie
Chicago Symphony OrchestraDaniel Barenboim2003Erato /Warner Classics
Tonhalle Orchester ZürichDavid Zinman2003Arte Nova Classics
Royal Concertgebouw OrchestraMariss Jansons2004RCO Live
Berliner PhilharmonikerSir Simon Rattle2005EMI
Wiener PhilharmonikerChristian Thielemann2006Deutsche Grammophon
Staatskapelle DresdenFabio Luisi2007Sony
Pittsburgh Symphony OrchestraManfred Honeck2008Exton
Philharmonia OrchestraChristoph von Dohnanyi2009Signum Records
Chicago Symphony OrchestraBernard Haitink2010CSO Resound
Rotterdam Philharmonic OrchestraYannick Nézet-Séguin2011BIS
Frankfurter Opern- und MuseumsorchesterSebastian Weigle2013OehmsClassics
Bavarian Radio Symphony OrchestraMariss Jansons2015BR Klassik
Melbourne Symphony OrchestraAndrew Davis2016ABC Classics
Munich Philharmonic OrchestraValery Gergiev2017MPHIL