Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss started composing at six and didn't stop for nearly eight decades. His tone poem Don Juan brought wide acclaim, followed by Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra, and others that made his orchestral writing a standard. Salome, using Hedwig Lachmann's German translation of Oscar Wilde's play, launched his operatic fame; then came a string of operas with Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten - that cemented his place in the repertoire. He conducted across Europe and the Americas, led major houses from Berlin to Vienna, and co-founded the Salzburg Festival in 1920. In 1933 he accepted posts under the Nazi regime, including head of the Reichsmusikkammer after Toscanini resigned in protest - a decision history has scrutinized ever since. His daughter-in-law was Jewish; Strauss used his positions to shield her and his grandchildren, insisted on a Jewish librettist for Die schweigsame Frau, and premiered Friedenstag as a veiled plea for peace just before the war began. Dozens of his in-laws died in concentration camps despite his efforts. A Munich trib