Capriccio: Prelude for string sextet

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Capriccio: Prelude for string sextet (1942)

There are not so many string sextets that – just because it was written for the opera house rather than the concert hall – we can afford to ignore one of the most beautifully scored examples of its kind. In fact, Strauss himself arranged a hearing of the Capriccio Prelude as a concert piece several months before the first performance of the opera at the Munich State Opera in 1942. It is equally effective in either situation. In the opera a string-sextet Prelude makes sense since it is presented as the composer Flamand’s tribute to his patroness the Countess and is appropriately scaled for performance in her château near Paris. In the concert hall it is texturally so fascinating and structurally so convincing that it needs no theatrical context to sustain it.   

It is true that there was no such thing as a string sextet in 1775, at which time the opera is set, and even if there had been it wouldn’t have sounded like this. But Strauss was concerned not so much with period authenticity as with allying his own late-romantic style with classical form and classical values – as he was to do again in the Second Horn Concerto and the Oboe Concerto. It is based on one of those infinitely flexible little themes so characteristic of late Strauss. Introduced by first violin in the opening bars, it is immediately developed in elaborate but always spontaneous counterpoint. That theme is still there, repeated as an ostinato on the first cello, when the more extended and more expressive second subject makes its entry. Except in an oddly stormy episode of orchestral tremolandos at the beginning of the development, it is all very civilised and conscientiously observant of the conventions of sonata form.

In the opera house it is a little different. The notes are the same but at the beginning of the recapitulation the curtain rises and the sextet in the pit gives way to a sextet on the stage. Anyone who has got to know the Prelude as a concert piece will be surprised to hear it competing with Flamand and his poet colleague Olivier’s aesthetic discussion on what comes first, the music or the words, and will reluctantly conclude that the words have won already.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Capriccio: Prelude for string sextet

There are not so many string sextets that - just because it was written for the opera house rather than the concert hall - we can afford to ignore one of the most beautifully scored examples of its kind. In fact, Strauss himself arranged a hearing of the Capriccio Prelude as a concert piece several months before the first performance of the opera at the Munich State Opera in 1942. It is equally effective in either situation. In the opera a string-sextet Prelude makes sense since it is presented as the composer Flamand’s tribute to his patroness the Countess and is appropriately scaled for performance in her château near Paris. In the concert hall it is texturally so fascinating and structurally so convincing that it needs no theatrical context to sustain it.

It is true that there was no such thing as a string sextet in 1775, at which time the opera is set, and even if there had been it wouldn’t have sounded like this. But Strauss was concerned not so much with period authenticity as with allying his own late-romantic style with classical form and classical values - as he was to do again in the Second Horn Concerto and the Oboe Concerto. It is based on one of those infinitely flexible little themes so characteristic of late Strauss. Introduced by first violin in the opening bars, it is immediately developed in elaborate but always spontaneous counterpoint. That theme is still there, repeated as an ostinato on the first cello, when the more extended and more expressive second subject makes its entry. Except in an oddly stormy episode of orchestral tremolandos at the beginning of the development, it is all very civilised and conscientiously observant of the conventions of sonata form.

In the opera house it is a little different. The notes are the same but at the beginning of the recapitulation the curtain rises and the sextet in the pit gives way to a sextet on the stage. Anyone who has got to know the Prelude as a concert piece will be surprised to hear it competing with Flamand and his poet colleague Olivier’s aesthetic discussion on what comes first, the music or the words, and will reluctantly conclude that the words have won already.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Capriccio: Prelude for string sextet

Strauss’s Capriccio Prelude is a rare phenomenon. String sextets – two each of violins, violas and cellos – are are uncommon even in the chamber-music repertoire: the few examples regularly performed are the Brahms masterpieces in B flat and G major respectively, Dvorák’s admiring acknowledgment of them in A major, Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. Among opera preludes, however, the Capriccio sextet is surely unique. At the same time, it is so beautifully written that it has long flourished as a sextet in its own right. Strauss himself arranged a hearing of it as a concert piece several months before the first performance of the opera in Munich in 1942. It is equally effective in either situation. In the opera a string-sextet Prelude makes sense since it is presented as the composer Flamand’s tribute to his patroness the Countess and is appropriately scaled for performance in her château near Paris. In the concert hall it is texturally so fascinating and structurally so convincing that it needs no theatrical context to sustain it.   

It is true that there was no such thing as a string sextet in 1775, at which time the opera is set, and even if there had been it wouldn’t have sounded like this. But Strauss was concerned not so much with period authenticity as with allying his own late-romantic style with classical form and classical values – as he was to do again in the Second Horn Concerto and the Oboe Concerto. It is based on one of those infinitely flexible little themes so characteristic of late Strauss. Introduced by first violin in the opening bars, it is immediately developed in elaborate but always spontaneous counterpoint. That theme is still there, repeated as an ostinato on the first cello, when the more extended and more expressive second subject makes its entry. Except in an oddly stormy episode of orchestral tremolandos at the beginning of the development, it is all very civilised and conscientiously observant of the conventions of sonata form.

In the opera house, incidentally, it is a little different. The notes are the same but at the beginning of the recapitulation the curtain rises and the sextet in the pit gives way to a sextet on the stage. Anyone who has got to know the Prelude as a concert piece will be surprised to hear it competing with Flamand and his poet rival Olivier’s aesthetic discussion on what comes first, the music or the words, and will reluctantly conclude that the words have won already.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Capriccio: Prelude for string sextet

Strauss’s Capriccio Prelude is a rare phenomenon. String sextets – two each of violins, violas and cellos – are are uncommon even in the chamber-music repertoire: the few examples regularly performed are the Brahms masterpieces in B flat and G major respectively, Dvorák’s admiring acknowledgment of them in A major, Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence and Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. Among opera preludes, however, the Capriccio sextet is surely unique. At the same time, it is so beautifully written that it has long flourished as a sextet in its own right. Strauss himself arranged a hearing of it as a concert piece several months before the first performance of the opera in Munich in 1942. It is equally effective in either situation. In the opera a string-sextet Prelude makes sense since it is presented as the composer Flamand’s tribute to his patroness the Countess and is appropriately scaled for performance in her château near Paris. In the concert hall it is texturally so fascinating and structurally so convincing that it needs no theatrical context to sustain it.   

It is true that there was no such thing as a string sextet in 1775, at which time the opera is set, and even if there had been it wouldn’t have sounded like this. But Strauss was concerned not so much with period authenticity as with allying his own late-romantic style with classical form and classical values – as he was to do again in the Second Horn Concerto and the Oboe Concerto. It is based on one of those infinitely flexible little themes so characteristic of late Strauss. Introduced by first violin in the opening bars, it is immediately developed in elaborate but always spontaneous counterpoint. That theme is still there, repeated as an ostinato on the first cello, when the more extended and more expressive second subject makes its entry. Except in an oddly stormy episode of orchestral tremolandos at the beginning of the development, it is all very civilised and conscientiously observant of the conventions of sonata form.

In the opera house, incidentally, it is a little different. The notes are the same but at the beginning of the recapitulation the curtain rises and the sextet in the pit gives way to a sextet on the stage. Anyone who has got to know the Prelude as a concert piece will be surprised to hear it competing with Flamand and his poet rival Olivier’s aesthetic discussion on what should come first, the music or the words, and will reluctantly conclude that the words have won already.