"Der Rosenkavalier"

[Tetrachord]

To me these things are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps you are referring to values and ideologies in the text - and this is still a matter of reception and understanding. Can you explain exactly what you mean?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... in Rosenkavalier traditional feudal values and pecking orders are reestablished in the end when Baron Ochs is sent back to the sticks where he belongs, having been humiliated by the "sophisticated" Viennese.

But Baron Ochs is humiliated not because he's a country bumpkin, but because he is a sort of mix between Boris Johnson and Eric Pickles - with a penchant for young girls from the lower end of the "pecking order". His treatment (by Hoffmannsthal and Strauss) is much "kinder" than that received by Malvolio or Beckmesser - and for much worse behaviour.

Rosenkavalier is unique amongst Strauss' operas for the prominent use of "slapstick"/"bedroom farce" comedy. If Strauss is treating himself to profiteroles, it was an indulgence he never allowed himself again - and after Salome and Elektra, he needed the break in language in order to move onto Ariadne and Die Frau Ohne Schatten. Composer and librettist wanted to write a comedy; and there's some very bitter dark chocolate on these profiteroles (I'd previously thought of it as the lemon with the meringue) that's at the real heart and soul of the opera. I've never met Conchis, but I love every semiquaver of this work (just as I do Salome, Elektra, and Die Frau - never got on with the sound of Ariadne) and have never thought it "over-long".

Best Kleiber recording? Erich's, of course!

[ahinton]

But Baron Ochs is humiliated not because he's a country bumpkin, but because he is a sort of mix between Boris Johnson and Eric Pickles - with a penchant for young girls from the lower end of the "pecking order". His treatment (by Hoffmannsthal and Strauss) is much "kinder" than that received by Malvolio or Beckmesser - and for much worse behaviour.

Rosenkavalier is unique amongst Strauss' operas for the prominent use of "slapstick"/"bedroom farce" comedy. If Strauss is treating himself to profiteroles, it was an indulgence he never allowed himself again - and after Salome and Elektra, he needed the break in language in order to move onto Ariadne and Die Frau Ohne Schatten. Composer and librettist wanted to write a comedy; and there's some very bitter dark chocolate on these profiteroles (I'd previously thought of it as the lemon with the meringue) that's at the real heart and soul of the opera. I've never met Conchis, but I love every semiquaver of this work (just as I do Salome, Elektra, and Die Frau - never got on with the sound of Ariadne) and have never thought it "over-long".

Best Kleiber recording? Erich's, of course!

What an excellent post! I cannot imagine the fine points that you make being expressed better!

[Richard Barrett]

he needed the break in language

I don't understand what that means. For me there is still considerable musical interest in Rosenkavalier but still a lot of it sounds to me as if it was written on autopilot, and I think its enormous success with the public had an adverse effect on Strauss' subsequent work, with its thinning of inspiration, sometimes more or less to zero (Die schweigsame Frau for example). Baron Ochs behaves the way he does because he doesn't know any better, but Strauss did...

(as for Beckmesser, his song ought to have won!)

[Beef Oven!]

(as for Beckmesser, his song ought to have won!)

Agreed - let’s start a petition .............

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't understand what that means.

I meant that having spent five years dealing with necrophiliac teenage girls and matricidal women, he wanted to lighten up!

For me there is still considerable musical interest in Rosenkavalier but still a lot of it sounds to me as if it was written on autopilot, and I think its enormous success with the public had an adverse effect on Strauss' subsequent work, with its thinning of inspiration, sometimes more or less to zero (Die schweigsame Frau for example).

I don't hear the "autopilot" in Rosenkavalier, and whilst I share your dislike of most of Strauss' post-War operas, in Ariadne the sound is completely different from that of Rosenkavalier. And Die Frau ohne Schatten is different again - and amongst the very best things he wrote, I feel.

Baron Ochs behaves the way he does because he doesn't know any better

I don't think he would have behaved differently if he had been taught to behave better. He's a Baron; he exploits his social power to screw chambermaids - he's a bargain basement Don Giovanni; a stingy coward, bully and braggart. I can see (and agree with) the idea that Strauss' mastery doesn't match Mozart's - Ochs is not the more complex psyche of Count Almaviva; his response to the "punishments" he endures does not show the frightening nihilistic courage of Don Giovanni defying the statue - it is a much more two-dimensional character than Mozart's. But his farce reflects in parody the sense of waning power - of time passing too quickly - that the Marschalin confronts in the opera.

(as for Beckmesser, his song ought to have won!)

[ahinton]

For me there is still considerable musical interest in Rosenkavalier but still a lot of it sounds to me as if it was written on autopilot, and I think its enormous success with the public had an adverse effect on Strauss' subsequent work, with its thinning of inspiration, sometimes more or less to zero (Die schweigsame Frau for example).

I don't think that any sense of writing on autopliot on Strauss's part manifested itself until some time after Rosenkavalier - certainly not during it; between the two World Wars, perhaps, but by no means always during that time either (and I don't hear much evidence of it in (Die schweigsame Frau). Norman del Mar, in his valuable three-volume study of Strauss, makes observations about those inter-War years as including a certain amount of "vamp till ready" (my phrase, not his!) work from the composer, made possible in part, perhaps, by a consummate technique that enabled him to find so much to be so easy to do. That said, there are still gems from those years, even if he finally raised his game a little more consistently from Capriccio onwards (especially to the despairing, resigned depths of Metamorphosen and the heights of Vier Letzte Lieder).

[ahinton]

(as for Beckmesser, his song ought to have won!)

Agreed - let's start a petition

Should its terms and conditions provide that the winning song attract at least 60% of the votes for it and be valid only if at least 75% of those assigned to judge them actually turned up to listen?

Oops, sorry; wrong thread!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't think that any sense of writing on autopliot on Strauss's part manifested itself until some time after Rosenkavalier - certainly not during it; between the two World Wars, perhaps, but by no means always during that time either (and I don't hear much evidence of it in (Die schweigsame Frau). Norman del Mar, in his valuable three-volume study of Strauss, makes observations about those inter-War years as including a certain amount of "vamp till ready" (my phrase, not his!) work from the composer, made possible in part, perhaps, by a consummate technique that enabled him to find so much to be so easy to do. That said, there are still gems from those years, even if he finally raised his game a little more consistently from Capriccio onwards (especially to the despairing, resigned depths of Metamorphosen and the heights of Vier Letzte Lieder).

This is my response to this Music, too (except that I don't know Die Schweigsame Frau ). There might be a case for suggesting that the Oboe Concerto represents a similar relationship to Metamorphosen that Rosenkavalier has with Elektra - the composer wishing to write something in a completely different mood? (Idle thought on a drizzleable Monday morning.)

[Richard Barrett]

I don't think he would have behaved differently if he had been taught to behave better.

He might have behaved with a little more decorum if he'd been part of polite Viennese society, was my point. Oktavian also uses his social position to take advantage of young (and not quite so young) women, although I imagine he would see it in more idealistic terms.

I can't get to grips with Frau ohne Schatten - this is an opposite sort of situation to my mind, where Hoffmannsthal provided Strauss with a much less straightforward scenario full of the kind of arcane symbolism that Strauss's virtuoso way with glittering illustrative surfaces was ill-equipped to deal with, although like almost all his operas I'll admit it has its moments too.

I meant that having spent five years dealing with necrophiliac teenage girls and matricidal women, he wanted to lighten up!

The problem is he lightened up and stayed lightened! Imagine if he had died in 1911 rather than Mahler - there would have been no end of speculation about what complex, decadent, modernistic music theatre he might have gone on to write, instead of becoming the kind of cosily retrogressive Kapellmeister that the cultural arbiters of the Third Reich could regard as one of their own (whether or not he thought of himself that way).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Oktavian also uses his social position to take advantage of young (and not quite so young) women, although I imagine he would see it in more idealistic terms.

I don't think he does this - we see only two of his relationships (he's not the serial screwer that Ochs is): the Marschalin seems more "in charge" of that relationship (and is the older of the two): she tells him what to do and how to behave - she is the one who suggests to her cousin that Oktavian should present the rose to Sophie. Oktavian is passive - I don't think either Hoffmansthal or Strauss provide "texts" that show that he is taking advantage of Sophie, any more than they do that she is taking advantage of a naive rich kid. (That's a line that could be followed - her father's daughter, after all?)

The problem is he lightened up and stayed lightened! Imagine if he had died in 1911 rather than Mahler - there would have been no end of speculation about what complex, decadent, modernistic music theatre he might have gone on to write, instead of becoming the kind of cosily retrogressive Kapellmeister that the cultural arbiters of the Third Reich could regard as one of their own (whether or not he thought of himself that way).

Yes - in the sense that the abrasive harmonies and melodic lines of Elektra & Salome never feature again in his work. But at the same time, he didn't return to the farcical, nor the simpler "boy meets girl", aspects of Rosenkavalier again, either. Die Frau ohne Schatten is "lighter" than Der Prophet ohne Kopf, but it isn't "lighter" than Rosenkavalier, and is much more of a kind with Schreker's Die Ferne Klang, or Szymanowski's King Roger, or even Korngold's Tote Stadt - none of which can be described as "cosily retrogressively kappellmeister-ish", let alone meeting with Goebbel's approval.

I'm more in tune with ahinton's (and Del Mar's) summary that it is the work of the interwar years that can be so described - the immediate successors to Rosenkavalier are more complicated.

[Richard Barrett]

we see only two of his relationships (he's not the serial screwer that Ochs is)

He hasn't had time yet! But surely DieSchweigsame Frau is another attempt at farce (as are Die ägyotische Helena and Die Liebe der Danae in their own ways) and Arabella another attempt at reproducing the sentimental love-story aspect of Rosenkavalier (with a bit of coloratura thrown in for good measure since that went down so well in Ariadne!)

I agree with you about FrOSch being more of a kind with the other works you mention, but IMO the first two at least show it up as rather disjointed and uninspired in comparison (Schreker's Die Gezeichneten too, a masterpiece of decadence).

[vinteuil]

... I love every semiquaver of this work !

Yes, but what about all the other notes?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes, but what about all the other notes?

[ahinton]

Might a member calling himself Der Rosenkavalier comment in a thread entitled Eine Alpensinfonie, d'ya ken?