“Don Quixote,” Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character, Op. 35 Introduction, Theme with Variations, and Finale

Don Quixote, a virtuoso tone poem, shows Strauss at his best and at his worst. Composers have laid violent hands on the world-famous novel of Cervantes. The Knight has figured in both serious and comic operas. It occurred to Strauss that Don Quixote might be portrayed by one instrument, Sancho Panza by another. Strauss undoubtedly rubbed his hands with glee at the thought of the musical representation of ba-a-a-ing sheep and the opportunity of introducing a wind machine with a man turning a crank for the variation, “The Ride through the Air.” But there are fine passages in the work. When Don Quixote speaks nobly of the ideal, Strauss gives him noble music, and Strauss has seldom written more charming music than for the last speech of Sancho Panza. One might ask, however, if this music is in Sancho Panza’s character as Cervantes describes it. And in the final music—the disillusionment of Don Quixote and his death—Strauss attains, without straining and exaggeration, an emotional height that is seldom found in his instrumental compositions that follow. Hearing these emotional sections one almost forgets the imitative and pictorial passages of the work, which seem too long, with much music that is of little worth and interest.

Don Quixote (Introduzione, Tema con Variazioni, e Finale): Fantastische Variationen uber ein Thema ritterlichen Charakters, was composed at Munich in 1897 (the score was completed on December 29th of that year). It was played for the first time at a Gürzenich Concert, Cologne, from manuscript, Franz Wüllner conductor, March 8, 1898. Friedrich Grützmacher was the solo violoncellist. Strauss conducted his composition on March 18, 1898, at a concert of the Frankfort Museumgesellschaft, when Hugo Becker was the violoncellist. It is said that Becker composed an exceedingly piquant cadenza for violoncello on the “Quixote” motive for his own enjoyment at home.

The work is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, double bassoon, six horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tenor tuba, bass tuba, kettledrums, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, wind machine, harp, sixteen first violins, sixteen second violins, twelve violas, ten violoncellos, eight double basses. It is dedicated to Joseph Dupont.

Much has been written in explanation of this work, which followed Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30 (1896), and preceded Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40 (1898). As the story goes, at a music festival in Düsseldorf in 1899 an acquaintance of Strauss complained bitterly before the rehearsal that he had no printed “guide” to Don Quixote, with which he was unfamiliar. Strauss laughed, and said for his consolation, “Get out! you do not need any.” Arthur Hahn wrote a pamphlet of twenty-seven pages in elucidation. In this pamphlet are many wondrous things. We are told that certain queer harmonies introduced in an otherwise simple passage of the introduction “characterize admirably the well-known tendency of Don Quixote toward false conclusions.”

There is no programme attached to the score of this work. The arrangement for pianoforte gives certain information concerning the composer’s purposes.

Max Steinitzer declares in his Richard Strauss (Berlin and Leipsic, 1911) that with the exception of some details, as the “Windmill” episode, the music is intelligible and effective as absolute music; that the title is sufficiently explanatory. “The introduction begins immediately with the hero’s motive and pictures with constantly increasing liveliness by other themes of knightly and gallant character life as it is mirrored in writings from the beginning of the seventeenth century. ‘Don Quixote, busied in reading romances of chivalry, loses his reason—and determines to go through the world as a wandering knight.’” It is easy to recognize the hero’s theme in its variations, because the knight is always represented by the solo violoncello. The character of Sancho Panza is expressed by a theme first given to bass clarinet and tenor tuba; but afterward and to the end by a solo viola. Don Quixote is divided into an introduction, a theme with variations, and a finale. The sections are connected without a break. Each variation portrays an incident in the novel.