I should like to try to sketch here the strange and arresting
personality of the man who in Germany is considered the inheritor of
Wagner's genius--the man who has had the audacity to write, after
Beethoven, an Heroic Symphony, and to imagine himself the hero.
* * * * *
Richard Strauss is thirty-four years old.[167] He was born in Munich on
11 June, 1864. His father, a well-known virtuoso, was first horn in the
Royal orchestra, and his mother was a daughter of the brewer Pschorr. He
was brought up among musical surroundings. At four years old he played
the piano, and at six he composed little dances, _Lieder_, sonatas, and
even overtures for the orchestra. Perhaps this extreme artistic
precocity has had something to do with the feverish character of his
talents, by keeping his nerves in a state of tension and unduly exciting
his mind. At school he composed choruses for some of Sophocles'
tragedies. In 1881, Hermann Levi had one of the young collegian's
symphonies performed by his orchestra. At the University he spent his
time in writing instrumental music. Then Buelow and Radecke made him play
in Berlin; and Buelow, who became very fond of him, had him brought to
Meiningen as _Musikdirector_.
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