(and I try not to open parentheses or use too much punctuation)
Chapter one: no, I'm not a relative. Yes, because I don't know about you, but when someone says Strauss, I think of the damn Blue Danube. And all those stupid Austrians clapping out of time in the wonderful New Year's concert. No, not him. He has absolutely nothing to do with those Strausses. They weren't his cousins, or relatives, or anything. But that music there, he couldn't care less about it. End of chapter one.
Chapter two: yes, it's me. It's me, it's really me, Richard Strauss. The one who - for at least half of your adolescence - annoyed you, with the wonderful arrangement by Eumir Deodato, with Also Spracht Zarathustra. That damn pàpàpàrapaaaaa. That thing so wonderful that if I hear it again today, it makes me want to vomit. Back then, it was easy. It was: come on, this damn classical music sucks. Like they also played Wagner to shoot at the Vietnamese!
Chapter three: yes, it's me, and I don't know why. I don't know why. I really don't know. So - just to write something that sounds very much like a reviewer and not a free rambler - Strauss Richard (not a relative) is recent. He died in 1948. So at least one generation after Peppino. And even after Puccini, to be clear. And what does he write? Well, I swear, this is the strange thing. He writes a bunch of things. I know them all. Say, Salome, The Knight of the Rose, Death and Transfiguration, a sea of things, seriously. Every time I hear just the title of one of these things, I say: my home. I turn around. There's no Strauss-no-relative shelf. No, it's not that there isn't a shelf. There's not even a record. Not even one. Yet everything is my home. I mean, for instance, I'd be capable of talking (with translators in front) about the role of the Marshal in Rosenkavalier. Yet I don't have it. Why? I have a vague idea, but one worthy of investigations.
Chapter four: 4 damn songs. Well, anyway, be that as it may. Strauss, not a relative, in the end found some success. Believe it or not, even I, Monza, 2019, know by heart every title of every one of his works. That every time I hear it, I say my home. Then it's not quite clear if he's friends with the Nazis or not. Anyway, he has his issues. Best friends with Zweig (The Chess Story) who was Jewish, but he also had his role and kept it and didn't say anything. Well, he lived his time, and his time dealt him crap. But then, even for him, retirement age arrives. Maybe it's quota 100, stuff like that. And what does he do? He does normal things. He retires, goes to the lake, reads poetry. Specifically, stuff by Hermann Hesse (damn it, I listen to opera music because of him). And he stays there. Nice and quiet. Because it's nice by the lake. And by now the worst things seem to have passed. And nobody asks you for anything. Then his son gets involved. Making a fuss. Of course, thinking about the inheritance. And he bothers him. Until his death. Come on, damn it, dad, come on, something more.
Chapter five: four damn songs again. Which is the title. Four damn songs. Three with texts by Hesse (damn), one by another favorite of his. But only four songs. There would be a need to open a parenthesis on this, starting from Winterreise, but I've decided not to open it. And that - after consulting with the unions - I won't talk about Winterreise. Why? Because I have a wonderful CD edition of Winterreise. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Sorry if that's not much. I am now convinced he's the best Rigoletto ever. Him. A damn German. But he is. He has a wonderful voice. Wonderful is an understatement. Well, I'm about to close the parenthesis. Of Winterreise (Schubert, if you wanted to know), I have a wonderful edition. A CD. Live. Dieskau. And a damn German jerk in the front row who has a damn asinine cough. And who annoys throughout the evening. Closing the parenthesis before moving on to less politically correct matters.
Chapter six: I wasted chapter five. The son makes a fuss: come on, compose. Maybe we'll get the royalties, and I won't ever have to work. Or make waltzes like those non-relatives, but it doesn't matter. Fine. Strauss senior, not a relative, gives in. Four more songs. That would even be simple. Because you read the titles. Spring, September, Going to Sleep, Sunset. Come on, easy. Farewell to life. Stuff like that. Alas. No. That's not how it is. Sunset is the first. Spring perhaps the last. It's not even clear in what order he wanted them. Whether he thought of an order or not. An order? One of those things like a book by Hesse that spoke about what you can be, pieces you can mix as you wish? But no, come on, these are just the last four damn songs. You get in front of the audience, sing them, say thank you. You did them for your son, maybe when he grows up, he'll do waltzes. The Austrians play them at New Year’s, clapping their hands.
Chapter six: what I will never forgive Strauss for. This one. Non-relative. Basically two things. Or three. One: this damn Also Spracht Zarathustra. Two: knowing by heart every one of his things without knowing why. Three: a damn lied. Much before the last four. One that talks about the Day of the Dead. And if you rummage through the listenings, you'll find it. Four: the last four lieder. The last four songs. Stuff so terrifying. So much that when you hear them, you say it’s home.
Five: what I'm listening to now. That after those last four songs, he writes another. A fifth. It’s easy to find if you Google. It’s simple, calm. If I ever wanted to talk about what little I understand about music, I’d say it's something for fun. So it happens that from this fool Strauss - not related to those of the Blue Danube that the Germans clap along to and who ruined my adolescence with Zarathustra - this damn little song dedicated to mallow (in the sense of the flower), I've heard it at least twenty times already. And maybe you were interested too. So I thought, why not write it here?
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