Richard Strauss was one of the most controversial giants in music.  His scandalous operas Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909) were marked by a brilliant use of the orchestra and a decidedly modernist sound, fueling debates throughout Europe and generating newspaper coverage around the world.  The tall, slim, happy but henpecked husband was pilloried by early 20th century religious leaders for his immoral characters and situations, despite his impeccable personal life.

Strauss was both admired – and criticized – for having the audacity to demand that he be exceptionally well paid for all his musical efforts.  He was perhaps the richest composer in history, up until that time; and, for a big enough paycheck, Strauss was happy to bring his music to the masses in such unlikely places as Wanamaker’s Department Store in New York City.

His wife Pauline, a former singer, was a demanding shrew whom Strauss apparently adored.  Admitting that, in his youth, he had a tendency to procrastinate; Strauss also claimed Pauline eliminated the problem by screaming, “Richard, go compose!”  And compose he did.

Richard Strauss was born in Munich, Germany, on June 10, 1864, the son of a celebrated horn player and sometime-composer who, although he detested the music of Richard Wagner, performed his horn parts so beautifully that Wagner had to keep him in the Munich orchestra. 

Strauss showed his precociousness early: he played the piano and violin before he started school, and was composing by the age of six.  His father supervised his son’s conservative musical education, with a heavy emphasis on Mozart and other composers from the classical and early Romantic periods.  This background was, perhaps, never more apparent than in Strauss’s Mozartean Ariadne auf Naxos in 1912 (a work based in part on Mozart’s experiences during the production of his opera, Idomeneo).

Strauss attended the University of Munich in the early 1880’s, never acquiring a degree, but he went on to play piano for various musical entertainments throughout the city.  His compositions caught the ear of legendary conductor Hans von Bülow, leading to several performances and commissions which elicited both boos and cheers from his audiences.

In 1886, Strauss was appointed a conductor for the Munich Opera, and it was here that he met his future wife.  The story goes that the two had a violent argument during a rehearsal that was carried into her dressing room.  When the pair emerged, they were engaged.

His major break came in 1889 with the tone poem Don Juan.  The score demanded an orchestra of unprecedented size and a conductor of unprecedented talent.  Just one year earlier, Strauss had been selected to conduct Berlin’s Royal Opera, remaining for twenty years until his appointment as co-director of the Vienna Opera.

After the premiere of the wildly successful comic opera, Der Rosenkavalier, Richard Strauss was unable to top himself and gradually lost favor with both audiences and critics.  He remained in Germany during the Second World War, angering the Nazi regime by working with Jewish librettist Stefan Zweig but, largely, managing to remain apolitical.  Strauss died at his home in Garmisch in 1949.