Richard Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra

Richard Strauss’ fame first began in the late 1800’s when his tone poems became extremely popular. One of his most popular tone poems that also brings him his claim to fame and acknowledgement in the musical world was Also Sprach Zarathustra, or in English, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The work itself has been an extremely important contribution to music and movie history, as it is extremely recognizable because of its use in modern and historical media. The symphonic work was first premiered in 1896, and since, it has been an extremely important part of the development of classical music in the nineteenth and twentieth century.
Strauss was born in 1864 in Munich, Germany and began composing music at the age of six. He created his first major works,
The work itself is considered a classical piece from the post-romantic era. It was written in the summer of 1896 and premiered later that year on November 27 in Frankfurt. It was first recorded in 1935 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and it has been re recorded in multiple types of media by many different symphony orchestras since. In 1944 Strauss conducted his own recorded version of the piece with the Vienna Philharmonic that was later made into a record, or LP, and then into a CD that is still listened to
The most recognizable part of this tone poem is the opening fanfare entitled “Sunrise”. This particular piece of the work is still popular today, as it appears in major modern films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick. “Sunrise”, however is only one part of the entire tone poem. This part utilizes the brass and the timpani to create a powerful, moving opening fanfare that is immediately followed by a softer motive with the woodwinds and strings in the next section of the piece entitled, “Of Those in Backwaters”. “Of the Great Longing” comes righter after the softer motive and then “Of Joys and Passions” tells an entirely different story with a whole other character. The next movements are “The Song of the Grave” otherwise known as “Funeral Song”. There is some dispute about it, because the actual names of every part of the work are translated from German. There is then the song “Of Science and Learning” followed by “The Convalescent” and soon after “The Dance Song”. The work ends mysteriously with “Song of the Night Wanderer”. In this last movement, the themes from the previous movements pop up again showing a sense of cycling; almost as though the work could be listened to on repeat seamlessly. The final part of the piece ends on a strange dissonance that leaves the piece wanting to resolve, but it never doing so. When listening straight through, it is hard to sense the end because of this atonal ending.