Richard Strauss was born in Munich on 11 June 1864. (From the outset, it is important to note that he was unrelated to Viennese composers Johann Strauss I and II.) Richard’s father, who held the position of solo horn at the Royal Munich Theatre, was staunchly conservative and despised the music of Wagner (Wagner was apparently willing to overlook this fact on account of the musician’s exceptional talent). As such, Richard grew up in a musical milieu, taking up piano at age four, violin at six, and composition at eleven. A child prodigy, at the age of 12 he composed a Festmarsch for orchestra. In the following years, he composed a number of works for piano or orchestra, and at 16, he enrolled at the Munich University to study philosophy and art history.

In 1884, Hans von Bülow, the first husband of Cosima Wagner (Liszt’s daughter), conducted Strauss’ Serenade for Wind Instruments, and came to affectionately refer to the young composer as “Richard II.” The following year, Strauss became the great conductor’s assistant in Meinigen. While there, Strauss became acquainted with violinist Alexandre Ritter, who was part of Liszt’s circle of friends and colleagues. It was through Ritter that Strauss was introduced to the world of theatre and Wagner’s concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk (prior to this, Strauss’ father had succeeded in insulating his son from Wagnerian concepts). Strauss left Meiningen with von Bülow, and on 1 November 1885, was named Musical Director of the Bavarian Royal Court. He left this position the following year in order to travel to Italy, with a brief period spent as third conductor at the Munich Opera. While in Italy, he composed Aus Italien, the first of a series of tone poems written mainly in the 1890s, comprising also Don Juan, Macbeth, Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, Ein Heldenleben, Symphonia Domestica and An Alpine Symphony. During this time, he became acquainted with soprano Pauline de Ahna, whom he went on to marry on 10 September 1894. Pauline would be a source of inspiration for Strauss for the next fifty years, for the composition of some 200 Lieder, as well as for key female roles in the composer’s operas.

In the following years, Strauss served as an assistant at the Bayreuth Opera, second conductor at the Court Theatre in the Autumn of 1889, and then as vocal conductor, again in Bayreuth. His first opera, Guntram, which premiered in Weimar in 1894, received poor reviews (his second, Feuersnot, premiered in 1901, fared little better). He was named second, and then in 1896, first conductor of the Munich Opera, as well as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic (succeeding von Bülow); the latter post allowed him to conduct performances of his own tone poems during European and North American (1904) tours with the orchestra.

In 1900, he met poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal in Paris. The friendship that developed between the two men (as evidenced by the substantial surviving correspondence) gave rise to numerous collaborations, with Hofmannsthal authoring the libretti for Strauss’ operas Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne on Naxos, The Woman without a Shadow, and Arabella.

In 1905, his third opera, Salomé, after Oscar Wilde, was premiered in Dresden to considerable acclaim, not least on account of the scandalously erotic and violent nature of its libretto. This success saw the dawning of a new phase in Strauss’ life; he was now a famous theatre musician who would go on to compose sixteen further large-scale operatic works, several of which have since become part of the standard repertoire. Der Rosenkavalier (1910) was his most internationally successful opera. Flippantly described as a “gigantic operetta” by music critic Émile Vuillermoz, it is paradigmatic of a series of “playful dramas” with neo-Mozartian overtones which would culminate in Arabella (1932-1933) and Capriccio (1941-1942).

After having succeeded as a conductor in the most prestigious posts in the German-speaking world (Munich, Berlin, Vienna), Strauss abandoned conducting in 1924 in order to focus solely on composing. However, the death in 1929 of Hofmannsthal, Strauss’ dear friend and collaborator, deeply affected the composer, leaving him unable to attend the premiere of Arabella. This marked the beginning of a creative crisis which was exacerbated by the rise of Nazism in the following decade. Nonetheless, Strauss remained engaged in musical life throughout the 1930s, and his operas continued to be premiered until 1942. He also conducted the Reichmusikkammer from 1933 to 1935, and replaced Toscanini in Bayreuth in 1933, when the Italian refused to work under the Nazi regime. He composed the anthem for the 1936 Olympic Games, and in 1940, travelled to the Far East for celebrations marking 26 centuries of the existence of the Japanese Empire. During the trip, an infamous photo was taken showing the composer shaking hands with Joseph Goebbels.

Strauss nonetheless enlisted Jewish author Stefan Zweig to write the libretto for his opera, The Silent Woman, premiered in 1935. Zweig’s name was removed from publicity material three days before the first performance, but at the composer’s behest (and against the advice of Zweig), was promptly added once again. Shortly afterwards, Strauss was forced to resign from his post as President of the Reichsmusikkammer; a letter to Zweig in which the composer clearly stated his opposition to the “Aryanisation” of art had been intercepted by censors and brought to the attention of the Gestapo. This, in addition to the fact that Strauss’ daughter-in-law, and therefore, also his grand-children, were Jewish, caused the composer to abruptly fall out of favour with the Nazi regime.

In the final years of the war, following the premiere of Capriccio (1942), Strauss turned once again to absolute music. Several concert works appeared which demonstrate the culmination of the composer’s neo-Mozartian tendencies (first manifest some thirty years prior, in Der Rosenkavalier). Strauss’ friendship with oboist and CIA operative John de Lancie gave rise to the composition of Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra (1945). In January of the following year, Metamorphosen for string orchestra, commissioned by Paul Sacher, was premiered in Zurich. The work is a grieving farewell to the old world (including the home in which the composer was born and the Munich Opera House, where his father had served brilliantly as solo horn), destroyed by the recent global conflict. Following the war, in the process of denazification, Strauss was accused of failing to abandon the cultural life of his country under the Nazi regime. Additionally, the residence that had been assigned to him by the Nazis was now temporarily in use by the occupying Americans.

In 1947, following an invitation from Sir Thomas Beecham, Strauss travelled to London to attend a number of high-profile retrospective performances of his works.

Richard Strauss died on 8 September 1949, some eight months before the premiere of his Vier letzte Lieder (1948), a setting of poems by Hesse and Eichendorff, at the Royal Albert Hall (with Furtwängler conducting) on 22 May, 1950. A child prodigy, he was active as a composer for more than 70 years.