Mahler and Strauss Both Gustav Essay

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In fact, in 1968 Stanley Kubrick chose Strauss's tone poem "Also Sprach Zarathustra" as the theme music for the science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Strauss's inspiration for the tone poem also happened to be avant garde fellow German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche.

Strauss's and Mahler's willingness to be innovative and creative led to considerable criticism as well as acclaim. The compositions of both Strauss and Mahler are filled with an emotional intensity that reflects the troubled times and political chaos they lived through. Richard Strauss's "Metamorphosen" was purportedly composed as a reaction piece to the Nazi bombings. The emotionality present in the works of both composers places them squarely within the late Romantic tradition.

One of the most noticeable characteristics of a Mahler composition, especially evident in his symphonies, is layering, polyphony, and eclecticism. A Mahler composition wanders through peaks and valleys of different terrains, even shifting key and tonality several times before revealing a core theme. Minor scales evoke Eastern European and Ashkenazi musical sensibilities, especially when played with woodwind and horn instrumentation. Rich, intense crescendos evoke the work of other artists including those Mahler directly drew from like Wagner. Richard Wagner also provided inspiration for Richard Strauss.

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Mahler and Strauss both composed music during the birth of the motion picture revolution in the arts. Although at the time they were written, Mahler's and Strauss's works were not woven into film they would be later such as with "Also Spake Zarathrustra." Listening to any Mahler or Strauss composition evokes drama, building on the classical music traditions established centuries earlier by Beethoven and Mozart. Listening to operas composed by either Strauss or Mahler shows, however, the radical shift in tone, style, and composition that had occurred by the beginning of the twentieth century. Increasingly global in scope, elements from Asian music and lyricism crept into the works of composers like Mahler and Strauss. For example, Mahler drew from Chinese poetry in some of his operas and "Also Spake Zarathustra" refers directly to Nietzsche's exposition on the narrowness of Christianity. The scourge of anti-Semitism that characterized the Nazi regime, and the oppressive social norms that coincided with Nazism, impacted Austrian and German music during the Second World War. Mahler and Strauss left a lasting legacy on Western musical composition by incorporating political awareness, social commentary, and emotional intensity into their vocal and instrumental compositions.

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