the
earth tremble and our hearts leap; nor can I describe how an iron
determination leads to the storming of towns, and all the tumultuous din
and uproar of battle--the most splendid battle that has ever been
painted in music. At its first performance in Germany I saw people
tremble as they listened to it, and some rose up suddenly and made
violent gestures quite unconsciously. I myself had a strange feeling of
giddiness, as if an ocean had been upheaved, and I thought that for the
first time for thirty years Germany had found a poet of Victory.

_Heldenleben_ would be in every way one of the masterpieces of musical
composition if a literary error had not suddenly cut short the soaring
flight of its most impassioned pages, at the supreme point of interest
in the movement, in order to follow the programme; though, besides this,
a certain coldness, perhaps weariness, creeps in towards the end. The
victorious hero perceives that he has conquered in vain: the baseness
and stupidity of men have remained unaltered. He stifles his anger, and
scornfully accepts the situation. Then he seeks refuge in the peace of
Nature. The creative force within him flows out in imaginative works;
and here Richard Strauss, with a daring warranted only by his genius,
represents these works by reminiscences of his own compositions, and
_Don Juan, Macbeth, Tod und Verklaerung, Till, Zarathustra, Don Quixote,
Guntram_, and even his _Lieder_, associate themselves with the hero
whose story he is telling. At times a storm will remind this hero of his
combats; but he also remembers his moments of love and happiness, and
his soul is quieted. Then the music unfolds itself serenely, and rises
with calm strength to the closing chord of triumph, which is placed like
a crown of glory on the hero's head.

There is no doubt that Beethoven's ideas have often inspired,
stimulated, and guided Strauss's own ideas. One feels an indescribable
reflection of the first _Heroic_ and of the _Ode to Joy_ in the key of
the first part (E flat); and the last part recalls, even more forcibly,
certain of Beethoven's _Lieder_. But the heroes of the two composers are
very different: Beethoven's hero is more classical and more rebellious;
and Strauss's hero is more concerned with the exterior world and his
enemies, his conquests are achieved with greater difficulty, and his
triumph is wilder in consequence. If that good Oulibicheff pretends to
see the burning of Moscow in a disc