The North and the South mingle; and in his
melodies one feels the attraction of the sun. Something Italian had
crept into _Tristan_; but how much more of Italy there is in the work of
this disciple of Nietzsche. The phrases are often Italian and their
harmonies ultra-Germanic. Perhaps one of the greatest charms of
Strauss's art is that we are able to watch the rent in the dark clouds
of German polyphony, and see shining through it the smiling line of an
Italian coast and the gay dancers on its shore. This is not merely a
vague analogy. It would be easy, if idle, to notice unmistakable
reminiscences of France and Italy even in Strauss's most advanced works,
such as _Zarathustra_ and _Heldenleben_. Mendelssohn, Gounod, Wagner,
Rossini, and Mascagni elbow one another strangely. But these disparate
elements have a softer outline when the work is taken as a whole, for
they have been absorbed and controlled by the composer's imagination.
His orchestra is not less composite. It is not a compact and serried
mass like Wagner's Macedonian phalanxes; it is parcelled out and as
divided as possible. Each part aims at independence and works as it
thinks best, without apparently troubling about the other parts.
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