Richard Strauss and Metamorphosen - Analysis of performance from the perspectives of violinist and conductor

Abstract

This research project examines the processes of performance, and compares the experiences from two points of view – those of conductor and violinist. One has more complete control over the interpretation and direction of the ensemble, while the other, in a chamber music context, is more collaborative. The project focusses on Richard Strauss’s work Metamorphosen (1945), a work that exists in two different, equally accepted versions. The first is Strauss’s own writing, subtitled a Study for 23 Solo Strings; and the second is a 1994 realisation by Rudolph Leopold of Strauss’s original short score, for string septet. I am in a unique position, having studied both violin and orchestral conducting to a post-graduate level, to explore this work from the two perspectives. Over the course of my research, I rehearsed and performed the two versions of Metamorphosen with my colleagues at the Australian National Academy of Music, alongside auxiliary works. These were the second movement, Marche funebre, from Beethoven’s Symphony no. 3 in Eb major ‘Eroica’, and Strauss’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in Eb major. As a piece of artistic research, the recordings of my performances of these works represent core components of this submission. This supporting exegesis focusses largely on the processes of rehearsing and performing the works from the perspectives of both violinist and conductor, and how these compared. It also contains background information on the compositional history of Metamorphosen, as well as aural analyses of two notable recordings conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler and Simone Young. I have also included supplementary material, which consists of the programme notes I have written for my performances along with extra details; copies of my personal scores of each work; and a list of all sources that I have referred to in preparation for this project.