5 - Reception

Summary

Programme music and its antagonists

The success of Also sprach Zarathustra in the concert hall was largely bound up with Strauss's conducting career. Although other conductors took it up, Strauss himself performed it on tours in numerous European cities. His letters document these as a succession of triumphs. In addition to his engagements in such German cities as Düsseldorf and Strassburg (as it was then), Strauss took Zarathustra to Belgium (Liège and Brussels), Amsterdam, Paris and Zurich before the century ended. As an indication of the acclaim with which Zarathustra was greeted, the first performance in Cologne may again be cited, with the work being accorded even more calls from the audience than the soloists received. He took particular care to make sure that Spitzweg knew of the good impression that his latest publication was making. Performances in Berlin seem to have been of a particularly high standard, and he considered one occasion in October 1898 as ‘the finest performance of Zarathustra which I have experienced’. His friends took these accounts of triumph at face value, though whether they accepted Strauss's valuation of the work as ‘by far the most important of all my pieces, the most perfect in form, the richest in content and the most individual in character’ is difficult to ascertain; that it was ‘faultlessly scored’ must have seemed all too credible.

It went without saying, however, that a large critical faction found Zarathustra hard to take, and this did in time have its effect on performance and audience reactions.