Richard Strauss's Symphonic Poems: Context, Program, Musical Narrative

Richard Strauss, the most influential composer at the turn of the 19th century to the 20th century in Europe, can be regarded as the last master of Romantic music. Particularly in the late 19th century, he wrote seven symphonic poems, which made a great contribution to the development of program music. In order to reveal the artistic connotation of these musical works and understand its significance in the late Romantic music, this dissertation, from a perspective on musical plots and narrative, tries to interpret Strauss's creative thinking and its related musical style, examining the context for composition, musical languages, formal structure and the nature of the genre.The dissertation is divided into six chapters, studying cultural-musical context, meaning of text, and characteristics of compositional process respectively. Also, the relation between artistic expression and musical narrative in the compositions is explored. Chapter One, built upon explaining the nature and features of narrative theory and its development in literary field, discusses the characteristics of narrative and discourse in musical works, especially in symphonic poems. Chapter Two concerns the social-cultural context within which Strauss was facing the challenges to apply literary texts into his symphonic writing for demonstrating his aesthetic pursuit and personal philosophy. Chapter Three investigates the features of Strauss's musical themes and their transformation and interprets the function of thematic construction and its artistic meaning, a fulfillment of presenting the portrait of musical characters, emotional climax and dramatic power of musical plots, based on the analysis of overall static structures such as principles of variation, rondo, sonata form and thematic recurring in the compositions. Chapter Four deals with how these forms and structures deliver program information in Strauss's symphonic poems, revealing the contents of musical texts projected in formal structures. Chapter Five focuses on Strauss's narrative procedure in orchestral presentation with instrumental texture and tonal color by describing interactive relations among instrumentation, tonal organization. symphonic dynamics and structural layout. Chapter Six rethinks the major issues regarding the essence of musical narrative in program music, the relation between narrative process and description of musical plot. As a final thought, this chapter evaluates the artistic significance of Strauss's symphonic poems and heightens the importance of the perspective on musical narrative in Strauss's symphonic compositions.