What You’ll Hear at Wei Phi | Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

“Sunrise” from “Also sprach Zarathustra” (Thus Spake Zarathustra), Op. 30

Background

While working on his opera Guntram in 1892, Strauss read Nietzsche’s “prose-poem” Also sprach Zarathustra for the first time. Guntram eventually came to reflect many of Nietzsche’s philosophical views, particularly his rejection of Christian belief. In Zarathustra (1883-85), his most widely-known work, Nietzsche uses the ancient Persian mystic Zoroaster (Zarathustra) as his protaganist. Through the story of this prophet, Nietzsche introduced the concept of the superman, a person driven by what Nietzsche called the “will to power” to rise above the “weak herd” of humanity. (Not surprisingly, Nietzsche’s philosophy was celebrated and grotesquely distorted some fifty years later by the Nazis.) After the premiere of Guntram in 1894, Strauss began work on a tone poem based upon Also sprach Zarathustra. The score is prefaced by a lengthy excerpt from the opening of Nietzsche’s poem—in which Zarathustra, after ten years as hermit, rises to greet the dawn and resolves to descend from his mountain retreat and spread his wisdom amongst the people below. Strauss’s program for the work is not a narrative and literal depiction of Zarathustra’s journey, but a more abstract interpretation of ideas from Nietzsche.

What You’ll Hear

The opening is a powerful rendering of the sunrise of Nietzsche’s prologue. Thanks to Stanley Kubrick’s use of this passage in his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, (and countless uses in film and television since then) this is perhaps the best-known 22 measures of Strauss’s music. This passage not only provides a powerful opening statement, but it also sets up the conflict between nature, light, and wisdom (C Major, the key of the opening fanfare) and humankind (B minor) that continues throughout the work.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

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Strauss composed the tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra in 1896, completing the score on August 24, and led the premiere performance in Frankfurt on November 27 of the same year. Duration 20:00.

Strauss’s famous “sunrise” fanfare at the opening of Also sprach Zarathustra is among the best-known pieces of classical music. It also sets up a philosophical conflict in the piece as a whole.