• U.S.

Music: Richard Strauss’s Epitaph

2 minute read
TIME

One of the last wishes of the late Richard Strauss was that Kirsten Flagstad should be the soprano to introduce the four songs which he finished in 1948, the year before his death at 85 (TIME, Sept. 19). “I would like to make it possible,” he wrote to her, “that [the songs] should be at your disposal for a world premiere in the course of a concert with a first-class conductor and orchestra.” In London last week Composer Strauss’s wish was fulfilled to the letter.

With Albert Hall packed for the occasion, great-domed German Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler stepped to the podium to lead London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. Plump and majestic, Soprano Flagstad took her place near his side, solemnly donned spectacles to read the music. What followed was a moving and deliberate farewell from a composer who, in his earlier years, had turned out the rich and masterful scores of Der Rosenkavalier, Death and Transfiguration, Don Quixote.

Sung as only Flagstad can sing, with her gorgeous, earth-mother quality of sound, The Four Last Songs (Going to Sleep, September, Spring, At Sunset), were echoes of the old composer’s most mellow and memorable days. They spoke of a calm tiredness, deep autumnal peace, affection for his wife. At Sunset ended with a quiet and resigned interrogation: “Is this perhaps death?” As the last soft sounds died in the orchestra, one listening musician said, “What an epitaph to write for oneself!”

For the unveiling of the epitaph, Londoners could thank Sir Sri Jaya Chamaraja Wadiyar Bahudar, the wealthy, 30-year-old Maharaja of Mysore. Though he could not be present, the music-loving maharaja had put up a $4,800 guarantee for the performance, so that The Four Last Songs could be recorded for his fabulous (now 20,000 records) personal collection and shipped off to him in Mysore.

More Must-Reads from TIME

Contact us at letters@time.com