Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks -Tone Poem, op.28

Symphonic poem Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Opus 28 In 1890, when Strauss had already been appointed Kapellmeister to the Opera House at Weimar, he became acquainted with Eulenspiegel, an opera of his contemporary German composer Cyrill Kistler, about whose libretto he had been quite negative. At the same time, he had tried his own hand at the genre of opera – since 1887 he had been working on his opera project Guntram on his own libretto, and after its Weimar production, he immediately began to sketch the next one-act opera: Till Eulenspiegel bei den Schildbürgern ('Till Eulenspiegel with the Citizens of Shilda') The idea of this work did not leave him at ease for several years. Wrote Strauss, "Only the figure of Master Till does not quite appear before my eyes. The book of folk-tales only outlines a generalized rogue with too superficial a dramatic personality, and developing his character in greater depth, taking into account his contempt for humanity, also presents considerable difficulties." Till Eulenspiegel was not just a folklore character, but an actual personality as well. A German rogue peasant, he was born around 1300 in Braunschweig, lived near Lübeck and died of the plague in 1350. His tombstone, preserved until the early twentieth century, displayed an image of an owl (Ger. 'Eule') – a symbol of wisdom – and a hand-mirror (Ger. 'Spiegel'). The character of Till became central in numerous everyday tales of amusing tricks and pranks, witticisms and roguery, often encountered in the stories of other folklore characters. These stories are collected in The People's Book (1483), a publication which seems well-timed to coincide with the two-hundredth anniversary of Till's supposed birthday. He always manages to take in everyone: tradesmen and craftsmen, nobility, priests and professors, and invariably comes off clear. The People's Book of Till Eulenspiegel – an embodiment of the undying spirit of the German people – has enjoyed wide popularity and was translated into many languages. In 1867, it attracted the attention of Belgian writer Charles de Coster, who named the protagonist Eulenspiegel and made him one of the heroes of the Flemish nation's sixteenth-century struggle for independence. Strauss was not after such a radical reinvention of the folklore figure (there is no evidence that he ever read Coster's Legend of Eulenspiegel). Nonetheless, the composer still saw Till not just as a dexterous rascal, but also as "a character who holds people in contempt because he actually loves them." And the French writer and musicologist Romain Rolland noticed an unexpected similarity between Till and his creator. Meeting Strauss, he recognized in him the traits "inherent to the inhabitants of Munich and southern Germany, namely, the traditional inclination to jesting, paradox and satire, the character of a spoiled child, or Till Eulenspiegel." Richard Strauss never managed to write his opera about Till. On May 6, 1895, in Munich, he completed a tone poem with the long title Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche; nach alter Schelmenweise in Rondeauform ('Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, After the Old Rogue's Tale, Set in Rondo Form') Dedicated to the composer's friend Arthur Seidl, doctor of philosophy, it premiered on November 5 of the same year in Cologne. The conductor was Franz Wüllner, who as early as 1882 had undertaken to champion the music of the young Strauss. Two years later, Strauss dedicated to him a six-part choral song with orchestral accompaniment – Wandrers Sturmlied ('The Wanderer's Tempest Song’). When the conductor made a demand for a printed program to be provided for Till's premiere, Strauss objected: "It is impossible for me to give a program to Eulenspiegel: what I had in mind when writing the various sections, if put into words, would often seem peculiar and would possibly give offense. So let us, this time, leave it to the audience to crack the nuts which the rogue has prepared for them. All that is necessary to the understanding of the work is to indicate the two Eulenspiegel themes which are run right through the work in all manner of disguises, moods and situations until the catastrophe, when Till is strung up after sentence has been passed on him. Apart from that let the gay Cologners guess what the rogue has done to them by way of musical tricks.” Subsequently, however, in his conversations with German critics writing about this tone poem, Strauss referred to some particular jokes of Till which were captured in the music. Thus, it has become traditional to differentiate several major episodes: Till at the Fair, Till the Preacher, A Love Scene, Debate with the Scholars, Court Scene and Execution. The poem ends with the epilogue, noted down in the score in the author's own hand. The music of the poem served as the basis for the one-act ballet production Till Eulenspiegel, choreographed by distinguished Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky and staged in New York in 1916. Strauss's tone poem marked the beginning of a long list of his own comic works full of wit and ridicule. This list ends with the opera Die Liebe der Danae ('The Love of Danae') , written when the composer was 75 years old. Till Eulenspiegel, which is essentially a symphonic scherzo, is set to sophisticated orchestration revealing the best features of the Strauss style. He used stupendous orchestral forces to recreate the humour and the jokes of the "genius" (the way Till’s contemporaries were used to styling him) – an ensemble of quadruple dimensions featuring 8 French horns, 6 trumpets and a reinforced percussion group.