We may expect him to mark his scenes. We may not
care to crack that kind of a nut.[A] It is really not good eating.
Rather must we be satisfied with the pure beauty of the fruit, without a
further hidden kernel. There is no doubt, however, of the ingenuity of
these realistic touches. It is interesting, here, to contrast Strauss
with Berlioz, who told his stories largely by extra-musical means, such
as the funeral trip, the knell of bells, the shepherd's reed. Strauss at
this point joins with the Liszt-Wagner group in the use of symbolic
motives. Some of his themes have an effect of tonal word-painting. The
roguish laugh of Eulenspiegel is unmistakable.
[Footnote A: Strauss remarked that in _Till Eulenspiegel_ he had given
the critics a hard nut to crack.]
It is in the harmonic rather than the melodic field that the fancy of
Strauss soars the freest. It is here that his music bears an individual
stamp of beauty. Playing in and out among the edges of the main harmony
with a multitude of ornamental phrases, he gains a new shimmer of
brilliancy. Aside from instrumental coloring, where he seems to outshine
all others in dazzling richness and startling contrasts, he adds to the
lustre by a deft playing in the overtones of his harmonies, casting the
whole in warmest hue.
If we imagine the same riotous license in the realm of tonal
noise,--cacophony, that is, where the aim is not to enchant, but to
frighten, bewilder, or amaze; to give some special foil to sudden
beauty; or, last of all, for graphic touch of story, we have another
striking element of Strauss's art.
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