Richard Strauss and Munich

Extract

When an old man looks back on his life, it is natural that memory should soften disagreeable incidents and recall only the pleasant. This is perhaps the reason why Richard Strauss, too, confessed that the happiest memories of his life were connected with the town of his birth. He spent more than a quarter of his life within the city limits of Munich, and whenever he retired to his Garmisch eyrie or left it for his travels throughout Germany, Europe and America, to conduct the works of his great predecessors or interpret his own, his way always led him through his home town.