Den liflige musik

When Richard Strauss turned 50 on June 11, 1914, he was as the leading German musical personality of his time, who had just a few years before revolutionized German opera with "Salome", "Elektra" and "Der Rosenkavalier". But the outbreak of the First World War a few months later not only left the old Europe in disarray, it also came to set completely new agendas for art and music, and the subtle romanticist Strauss was not readily a part of them. After the Nazis took power in 1933, he was the most important German cultural figure who did not choose to flee, and the Nazis made good use of it for propaganda purposes. Nevertheless, the conflicts between the regime and the self-willed composer escalated more and more, and before his death in 1949, Strauss managed to see the great German music culture being laid in ruins. The delightful music is the first overall portrait in Danish ever of one of the 20th century's most powerful and strange artists. For in the midst of great history and the musical ups and downs, in the 150th anniversary of his birth, Strauss still largely stands as a mystery, an extremely private human being who ultimately seems to have had only one wish with life: to have peace to create music. The story of him is also about how difficult that can be.