Music: Richard Strauss

Olin Downes, music critic for the New York Times, made a point of attending the Richard Strauss Festspiele at Frankfort-am-Main the last days of August; and it was his chance to watch Composer-Conductor Richard Strauss, 63 & disgusted, roused to homely emotion. Critic Downes report reached print only last week.

Richard Strauss sat waiting to lead the Banda Municipala of Madrid in his Don Juan. The band’s regular conductor, elderly short & stout Lamote de Grignon, stood in the theatre wings. Came a messenger to Herr Strauss, whispered that a street of Frankfort had just been designated Richard Straussstrasse.

Herr Strauss jumped from his seat, hurdled on to the stage. “He was leaning forward,” wrote Olin Downes, “exhorting the orchestra, molding every phrase and gradation, spurring and reining that band at will, leading it up to climaxes of shattering intensity. . . . At the end every one lost his head except a newspaper photographer. De Grignon rushed frantically from the wings. He and Strauss fondled, kissed and babbled over each other. The photographer caught them on the fly and forced them to freeze in that attitude for a moment . . . the two men were genuinely angered.”