Synopsis

On today’s date in 1904, during his first visit to America, German composer Richard Strauss conducted a program of his music at Carnegie Hall in New York. Featured were Strauss’ tone poems Don Juan, Also Sprach Zarathustra and the world premiere of Sinfonia Domestica, or A Domestic Symphony.

After tone poems devoted to philanderers like Don Juan and philosophers like Zarathustra, Strauss apparently decided it was time to deal with family values.

He dedicated his Domestic Symphony to “my beloved wife and our young one,” and the work supposedly depicts 24 hours in the Strauss household, complete with baby’s bath, temper tantrum and connubial bliss after baby settles down for the night.

It raised eyebrows then and still does today. Strauss remained unflappable.

“I see no reason why I shouldn’t write about myself,” he said. “I find the subject as interesting as Napoleon or Alexander the Great.”

One waggish New York music critic, no doubt after meeting the formidable Mrs. Strauss, who accompanied her husband on his American tour, wrote: “If this were a true biographical sketch, we fancy that the wife would be portrayed by trombones and tuba, while the husband would be the second fiddle.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Richard Strauss (1864-1949): 'Sinfonia Domestica’; Minnesota Orchestra; Edo de Waart, cond. Virgin 61460