Week Five: The Birth of Modernism

Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra

Inspired by Nietzsche's work of philosophy, this tone poem traces man's quest for meaning from the beginning of the life, his primitive quest for sensual pleasure to his search for purpose through science and logic, to hie embrace of dance and communion.  Notable for its evolution of musical style from  the initial open of ing perfect  intervals  of octave, fifth and fourths, through a 12 tone fugue to a sweeping waltz, it is Strauss's  sculpting of sound to mirror a sweeping set of ideas that in fact trace many of their origins to Pythagoras himself.

---

Below is a link to  Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, a work that sough to abolish tonality entirely