Name	ZoroasterZaraϑuštra Spitāma
Known for	Founder of Zoroastrianism
Honorific	Ashu or Asho (i.e. Ashu Zarathushtra)
Spouse	Hvōvi (traditional)
Children	Freni, Pourucista, Triti;Isat Vastar, Uruvat-Nara, Hvare Ciϑra (traditional)
Parents	Pourušaspa Spitāma, Dughdova (traditional)}}

Zoroaster ( )(Avestan: Zaraϑuštra) was an ancient prophet and the founder of Zoroastrianism who lived in the North-Western Persia, todays Iran & Kurdistan. He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrianism. There is no consensus among scholars about the period of life, as the dates of his birth range from 3000 BCE to 600 BCE. The majority of his life is known through the Avestan texts.

Etymology

Zoroaster's name in his native language, Avestan, was Zaraϑuštra. The English name, "Zoroaster", and the derivatives from a later (5th-century BCE) Greek transcription, Zōroastrēs (Ζωροάστρης), as used in Xanthus's Lydiaca (Fragment 32) and in Plato's First Alcibiades (122a1). This form appears subsequently in the Latin Zōroastrēs and, in later Greek orthographies, as Zōroastris. The Greek form of the name appears to be based on a phonetic transliteration or semantic substitution of the Avestan zaraϑ- with the Greek zōros (literally "undiluted") and the Avestan -uštra with astron ("star"). The Avestan -uštra is accepted to mean or relate to "light".

In Avestan, Zaraϑuštra is generally accepted to derive from an Old Iranian *Zaratuštra-. While zarat- is strongly referenced to mean "golden" (from the old Eastern-Iranian zar- [-زر], meaning "gold") it does not itself appear in Avestan. The second half of the name (-uštra-) is universally accepted to mean "camel". These factors combined open the door for reconstructing the name's meaning, though there have been other alternative etymologies proposed.

Reconstructions from later Iranian languages—particularly from the Middle Persian (300 BCE) Zardusht, which is the form that the name took in the 9th- to 12th-century Zoroastrian texts—suggest that *Zaratuštra- might be a zero-grade form of *Zarantuštra-.

Subject then to whether Zaraϑuštra derives from *Zaratuštra- or from *Zarantuštra-, several interpretations have been proposed.

Following *Zaratuštra- are: "[owner of the] golden camel": this is derived from old Eastern Iranian word *zar- for gold and ushtra for camel, further corresponding to an Eastern Iranian origin (the Old Persian word dar as a Western-Iranian dialect would be the equal term of Eastern Iranian zar; Modern Persian uses the Eastern Iranian word for gold). "driving camel": related to Avestan zarš-, "to drag". Mayrhofer (1977) proposed an etymology of "desiring camels" or "longing for camels" and related to Vedic har-, "to like", and perhaps (though ambiguous) also to Avestan zara-. "yellow camel": parallel to younger Avestan zairi-.

Following *Zarantuštra- are: "angry camel": from Avestan *zarant-, "angry, furious". "old/aging camels": related to Avestic zarant-. (cf. Pashto zorr and Ossetic zœrond, "old"; Persian zāl, "old")

A folk etymology of the name is from zaraϑa, "golden", and the *uštra, "light" (from the root uš, "to shine"). In yet another etymological variation, Zaraϑuštra is split into two words: zara, "gold", and ϑuštra, "friend". Several more etymologies have been proposed, some quite fanciful, but none is factually based.

The interpretation of the -ϑ- () in Avestan zaraϑuštra was for a time itself subjected to heated debate because the -ϑ- is an irregular development: As a rule, *zarat- (a first element that ends in a dental consonant) should have Avestan zarat- or zarat̰- as a development from it. Why this is not so for zaraϑuštra has not yet been determined. Notwithstanding the phonetic irregularity, that Avestan zaraϑuštra with its -ϑ- was linguistically an actual form is shown by later attestations reflecting the same basis. All present-day, Iranian-language variants of his name derive from the Middle Iranian variants of Zarϑošt, which, in turn, all reflect Avestan's fricative -ϑ-.

Date

The date of Zoroaster, i.e., the date of composition of the Old Avestan gathas, is unknown. Scholarly mainstream opinion mostly places him near the 11th or 10th century BCE, but dates proposed in scholarly literature diverge widely, between the 18th and the 6th centuries BCE.

Until the late 17th century, Zoroaster was generally dated to about the 6th century BCE, which coincided with both the "Traditional date" (see details below) and historiographic accounts (Ammianus Marcellinus xxiii.6.32, 4th century AD). However, already at the time (late 19th century), the issue was far from settled, with James Darmesteter pleading for a later date (c. 100 BCE). Some ancient authors also give a mythological "date" corresponding to about 6000 BCE.

The "Traditional date" originates in the period immediately following Alexander the Great's conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BCE. The Seleucid kings who gained power following Alexander's death instituted an "Age of Alexander" as the new calendrical epoch. This did not appeal to the Zoroastrian priesthood who then attempted to establish an "Age of Zoroaster." To do so, they needed to establish when Zoroaster had lived, which they accomplished by counting back the length of successive generations until they concluded that Zoroaster must have lived "258 years before Alexander." This estimate then re-appeared in the 9th- to 12th-century texts of Zoroastrian tradition, which in turn gave the date doctrinal legitimacy. In the early part of the 20th century, this remained the accepted date (subject to the uncertainties of the 'Age of Alexander') for a number of reputable scholars, among them Hasan Taqizadeh, a recognized authority on the various Iranian calendars, and hence became the date cited by Henning and others.

By the late 19th century, scholars such as Bartholomea and Christensen noted problems with the "Traditional date," namely in the linguistic difficulties that it presented. The Old Avestan language of the Gathas (which are attributed to the prophet himself) is still very close to the Sanskrit of the Rigveda. Therefore, it seemed implausible that the Gathas and Rigveda could be more than a few centuries apart, suggesting a date for the oldest surviving portions of the Avesta of roughly the 2nd millennium BCE.

This 11th/10th century BCE date is now widely accepted among Iranists, who in recent decades found that the social customs described in the Gathas roughly coincide with what is known of other pre-historical peoples of that period. Supported by this historical evidence, the "Traditional date" can be conclusively ruled out, and the discreditation can to some extent be supported by the texts themselves: The Gathas describe a society of bipartite (priests and herdsmen/farmers) nomadic pastoralists with tribal structures organized at most as small kingdoms. This contrasts sharply with the view of Zoroaster having lived in an empire, at which time society is attested to have had a tripartite structure (nobility/soldiers, priests, and farmers). Although a slightly earlier date (by a century or two) has been proposed on the grounds that the texts do not reflect the migration onto the Iranian Plateau, it is also possible that Zoroaster lived in one of the rural societies that remained in Central Asia.

Place

Yasna 9 & 17 cite the Ditya River in Airyanem Vaējah (Middle Persian Ērān Wēj) as Zoroaster's home and the scene of his first appearance. The Avesta (both Old and Younger portions) does not mention the Achaemenids or of any West Iranian tribes such as the Medes, Persians, or even Parthians.

However, in Yasna 59.18, the zaraϑuštrotema, or supreme head of the Zoroastrian priesthood, is said to reside in 'Ragha'. In the 9th- to 12th-century Middle Persian texts of Zoroastrian tradition, this 'Ragha'—along with many other places—appear as locations in Western Iran. While Medea does not figure at all in the Avesta (the westernmost location noted in scripture is Arachosia), the Būndahišn, or "Primordial Creation," (20.32 and 24.15) puts Ragha in Medea (medieval Rai). However, in Avestan, Ragha is simply a toponym meaning "plain, hillside."

Apart from these indications in Middle Persian sources which are open to interpretations, there are a number of other sources. The Greek and Latin sources are divided on the birth place of Zarathustra. There are many Greek accounts of Zarathustra, referred usually as Persian or Perso-Median Zoroaster. Moreover they have the suggestion that there has been more than one Zoroaster. On the other hand, in post-Islamic sources Shahrastani (1086–1153) an Iranian writer originally from Shahristān, present-day Turkmenistan, proposed that Zoroaster's father was from Atropatene (also in Medea) and his mother was from Rey. Coming from a reputed scholar of religions, this was a serious blow for the various regions who all claimed that Zoroaster originated from their homelands, some of which then decided that Zoroaster must then have then been buried in their regions or composed his Gathas there or preached there. Also Arabic sources of the same period and the same region of historical Persia consider Azerbaijan as the birth place of Zarathustra.

By the late 20th century, some scholars had settled on an origin in Eastern Iran and/or Central Asia (to include present-day Afghanistan): Gnoli proposed Sistan (though in a much wider scope than the present-day province) as the homeland of Zoroastrianism; Frye voted for Bactria and Chorasmia; Khlopin suggests the Tedzen Delta in present-day Turkmenistan. Sarianidi considered the BMAC region as "the native land of the Zoroastrians and, probably, of Zoroaster himself." Boyce includes the steppes of the former Soviet republics. The medieval "from Media" hypothesis is no longer taken seriously, and Zaehner has even suggested that this was a Magi-mediated issue to garner legitimacy, but this has been likewise rejected by Gershevitch and others.

The 2005 Encyclopedia Iranica article on the history of Zoroastrianism summarizes the issue with "while there is general agreement that he did not live in western Iran, attempts to locate him in specific regions of eastern Iran, including Central Asia, remain tentative."

Life

The Gathas contain allusions to personal events, such as Zoroaster's triumph over obstacles imposed by competing priests and the ruling class. They also indicate he had difficulty spreading his teachings, and was even treated with ill-will in his mother's hometown. They also describe familial events such as the marriage of his daughter, at which Zoroaster presided. In the texts of the Younger Avesta (composed many centuries after the Gathas), Zoroaster is depicted wrestling with the daevas and is tempted by Angra Mainyu to renounce his faith (Yasht 17.19; Vendidad 19). The Spend Nask, the 13th section of the Avesta, is said to have a description of the prophet's life. However, this text has been lost over the centuries, and it survives only as a summary in the seventh book of the 9th century Dēnkard. Other 9th- to 12th-century stories of Zoroaster, as in the Shāhnāmeh, are also assumed to be based on earlier texts, but must be considered as primarily a collection of legends. The historical Zoroaster, however, eludes categorization as a legendary character.

Zoroaster was born into the priestly family of the Spitamids and his ancestor Spitāma is mentioned several times in the Gathas. His father's name was Pourušaspa, his mother's was Dughdova (Duγδōuuā). With his wife, Huvovi (Hvōvi), Zoroaster had three sons, Isat Vastar, Uruvat-Nara and Hvare Ciϑra three daughters, Freni, Pourucista and Triti. His wife, children and a cousin named Maidhyoimangha, were his first converts after his illumination from Ahura Mazda at age 30. According to Yasnas 5 & 105, Zoroaster prayed to Anahita for the conversion of King Vištaspa, who appears in the Gathas as a historical personage. In legends, Vištaspa is said to have had two brothers as courtiers, Frašaōštra and Jamaspa, and to whom Zoroaster was closely related: his wife, Hvōvi, was the daughter of Frashaōštra, while Jamaspa was the husband of his daughter Pourucista. The actual role of intermediary was played by the pious queen Hutaōsa. Apart from this connection, the new prophet relied especially upon his own kindred (hvaētuš).

Zoroaster's death is not mentioned in the Avesta. In Shahnameh 5.92, he is said to have been murdered at the altar by the Turanians in the storming of Balkh.

Philosophy

In the Gathas, Zoroaster sees the human condition as the mental struggle between aša (truth) and druj (lie). The cardinal concept of aša—which is highly nuanced and only vaguely translatable—is at the foundation of all Zoroastrian doctrine, including that of Ahura Mazda (who is aša), creation (that is aša), existence (that is aša) and as the condition for Free Will, which is arguably Zoroaster's greatest contribution to religious philosophy.

The purpose of humankind, like that of all other creation, is to sustain aša. For humankind, this occurs through active participation in life and the exercise of constructive thoughts, words and deeds.

Elements of Zoroastrian philosophy entered the West through their influence on Judaism and Middle Platonism and have been identified as one of the key early events in the development of philosophy. Among the classic Greek philosophers, Heraclitus is often referred to as inspired by Zoroaster's thinking.

Iconography

thumb|250 px|Detail of The School of Athens by Raphael, 1509, showing Zoroaster (left, with star-studded globe).

Although a few recent depictions of Zoroaster show the prophet performing some deed of legend, in general the portrayals merely present him in white vestments (which are also worn by present-day Zoroastrian priests). He often is seen holding a baresman (Avestan, MP barsom), which is generally considered to be another symbol of priesthood, or with a book in hand, which may be interpreted to be the Avesta. Alternatively, he appears with a mace, the varza—usually stylized as a steel rod crowned by a bull's head—that priests carry in their installation ceremony. In other depictions he appears with a raised hand and thoughtfully lifted finger, as if to make a point. Zoroaster is rarely depicted as looking directly at the viewer; instead, he appears to be looking slightly upwards, as if beseeching. Zoroaster is almost always depicted with a beard, this along with other factors bear similarities to 19th century portraits of Jesus.

A common variant of the Zoroaster images derives from a Sassanid-era rock-face carving. In this depiction at Taq-e Bostan, a figure is seen to preside over the coronation of Ardashir I or II. The figure is standing on a lotus, with a baresman in hand and with a gloriole around his head. Until the 1920s, this figure was commonly supposed to be a depiction of Zoroaster, but in recent years is more commonly interpreted to be a depiction of Mithra. Among the most famous of the European depictions of Zoroaster is that of the figure in Raphael's 1509 The School of Athens. In it, Zoroaster and Ptolemy are having a discussion in the lower right corner. The prophet is holding a star-studded globe.

Western perceptions

In classical antiquity

Although, at the core, the Greeks (in the Hellenistic sense of the term) understood Zoroaster to be the "prophet and founder of the religion of the Iranian peoples" (e.g. Plutarch Isis and Osiris 46-7, Diogenes Laertius 1.6-9 and Agathias 2.23-5), "the rest was mostly fantasy." He was set in the impossibly ancient past, six to seven millennia before the Common Era, and was variously a king of Bactria, or a Babylonian (or teacher of Babylonians), and with a biography typical for every Neopythagorean sage, i.e. a mission preceded by ascetic withdrawal and enlightenment.

Most importantly however, was their picture of Zoroaster as the sorcerer-astrologer non-plus-ultra, and indeed as the "inventor" of both magic and astrology. Deriving from that image, and reinforcing it, was a "mass of literature" attributed to him and that circulated the Mediterranean world from the 3rd century BCE to the end of antiquity and beyond. "The Greeks considered the best wisdom to be exotic wisdom" and "what better and more convenient authority than the distant—temporally and geographically—Zoroaster?"

The language of that literature was predominantly Greek, though at one stage or another various parts of it passed through Aramaic, Syriac, Coptic or Latin. Its ethos and cultural matrix was likewise Hellenistic, and "the ascription of literature to sources beyond that political, cultural and temporal framework represents a bid for authority and a fount of legitimizing 'alien wisdom'. Zoroaster and the magi did not compose it, but their names sanctioned it." The attributions to "exotic" names (not restricted to magians) conferred an "authority of a remote and revelation wisdom."

Once the magi were associated with magic in Greek imagination, Zoroaster was bound to metamorphose into a magician too. The 1st century Pliny the elder names Zoroaster as the inventor of magic (Natural History 30.2.3). "However, a principle of the division of labor appears to have spared Zoroaster most of the responsibility for introducing the dark arts to the Greek and Roman worlds." That "dubious honor" went to the "fabulous magus, Ostanes, to whom most of the pseudepigraphic magical literature was attributed." Although Pliny calls him the inventor of magic, the Roman does not provide a "magician's persona" for him. Moreover, the little "magical" teaching that is ascribed to Zoroaster is actually very late, with the very earliest example being from the 14th century.

One factor for the association with astrology was Zoroaster's name, or rather, what the Greeks made of it. Within the scheme of Greek thinking (which was always on the lookout for hidden significances and "real" meanings of words) his name was identified at first with star-worshiping (astrothytes "star sacrificer") and, with the Zo-, even as the living star. Later, an even more elaborate mytho-etymology evolved: Zoroaster died by the living (zo-) flux (-ro-) of fire from the star (-astr-) which he himself had invoked, and even, that the stars killed him in revenge for having been restrained by him.

Similar ideas about Zoroaster also appear in early Christian literature, beginning with the Clementine Homilies 9.4-5, which identifies him with a parallel series of traditions about Nimrod having been the founder of astrology. In this account, Nimrod is killed by lightning and posthumously deified by the Persians as "Zoroaster, on account of the living (zosan) stream of the star (asteros) being poured upon him."

The second, and "more serious" factor for the association with astrology was the notion that Zoroaster was a Babylonian. The alternate Greek name for Zoroaster was Zaratas/Zaradas/Zaratos (cf. Agathias 2.23-5, Clement Stromata I.15), which—so Cumont and Bidez—derived from a Semitic form of his name. The Pythagorean tradition considered the mathematician to have studied with Zoroaster in Babylonia (Porphyry Life of Pythagoras 12, Alexander Polyhistor apud Clement's Stromata I.15, Diodorus of Eritrea, Aristoxenus apud Hippolitus VI32.2). Lydus (On the Months II.4) attributes the creation of the seven-day week to "the Babylonians in the circle of Zoroaster and Hystaspes," and who did so because there were seven planets. The Suda's chapter on astronomia notes that the Babylonians learned their astrology from Zoroaster. Lucian of Samosata (Mennipus 6) decides to journey to Babylon "to ask one of the magi, Zoroaster's disciples and successors," for their opinion.

While the division along the lines of Zoroaster/astrology and Ostanes/magic is an "oversimplification, the descriptions do at least indicate what the works are not." They were not expressions of Zoroastrian doctrine, they were not even expressions of what the Greeks and Romans "imagined the doctrines of Zoroastrianism to have been." The assembled fragments do not even show noticeable commonality of outlook and teaching among the several authors who wrote under each name.

Almost all Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha is now lost, and of the attested texts—with only one exception—only fragments have survived. Pliny's 2nd/3rd century attribution of "two million lines" to Zoroaster suggest that (even if exaggeration and duplicates are taken into consideration) a formidable pseudepigraphic corpus once existed at the Library of Alexandria. This corpus can safely be assumed to be pseudepigrapha because no one before Pliny refers to literature by "Zoroaster," and on the authority of the 2nd century Galen of Pergamon and from a 6th century commentator on Aristotle it is known that the acquisition policies of well-endowed royal libraries created a market for fabricating manuscripts of famous and ancient authors.

The exception to the fragmentary evidence (i.e. reiteration of passages in works of other authors) is a complete Coptic tractate titled Zostrianos (after the first-person narrator) discovered in the Nag Hammadi library in 1945. A three-line cryptogram in the colophones following the 131-page treatise identify the work as "words of truth of Zostrianos. God of Truth [logos]. Words of Zoroaster." Invoking a "God of Truth" might seem Zoroastrian, but there is otherwise "nothing noticeably Zoroastrian" about the text and "in content, style, ethos and intention, its affinities are entirely with the congeners among the Gnostic tractates."

Among the named works attributed to "Zoroaster" is a treatise On Nature (Peri physeos), which appears to have originally constituted four volumes (i.e. papyrus rolls). The framework is a retelling of Plato's Myth of Er, with Zoroaster taking the place of the original hero. While Porphyry imagined Pythagoras listening to Zoroaster's discourse, On Nature has the sun in middle position, which was how it was understood in the 3rd century. In contrast, Plato's 4th century BCE version had the sun in second place above the moon. Ironically, Colotes accused Plato of plagiarizing Zoroaster, and Heraclides Ponticus wrote a text titled Zoroaster based on (what the author considered) "Zoroastrian" philosophy in order to express his disagreement with Plato on natural philosophy. With respect to substance and content in On Nature only two facts are known: that it was crammed with astrological speculations, and that Necessity (Ananké) was mentioned by name and that she was in the air.

Another work circulating under the name of "Zoroaster" was the Asteroskopita (or Apotelesmatika), and which ran to five volumes (i.e. papyrus rolls). The title and fragments suggest that it was an astrological handbook, "albeit a very varied one, for the making of predictions." A third text attributed to Zoroaster is On Virtue of Stones (Peri lithon timion), of which nothing is known other than its extent (one volume) and that pseudo-Zoroaster sang it (from which Cumont and Bidez conclude that it was in verse). Numerous other fragments (preserved in the works of other authors) are attributed to "Zoroaster," but the titles of whose books are not mentioned.

These pseudepigraphic texts aside, some authors did draw on a few genuinely Zoroastrian ideas. The Oracles of Hystaspes, by "Hystaspes", another prominent magian pseudo-author, is a set of prophecies distinguished from other Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha in that it draws on real Zoroastrian sources. Some allusions are more difficult to assess: in the same text that attributes the invention of magic to Zoroaster, Pliny states that Zoroaster laughed on the day of his birth, although in an earlier place (VII, I), Pliny had sworn in the name of Hercules that no child had ever done so before the 40th day from his birth. This notion of Zoroaster's laughter (like that of "two million verses") also appears in the 9th-11th century texts of genuine Zoroastrian tradition, and for a time it was assumed that the origin of those myths lay with indigenous sources. Pliny also records (VII, XV) that Zoroaster's head had pulsated so strongly that it repelled the hand when laid upon it, a presage of his future wisdom. The Iranians were however just as familiar with the Greek writers. The provenance of other descriptions are clear, so for instance, Plutarch's description of its dualistic theologies: "Others call the better of these a god and his rival a daemon, as, for example, Zoroaster the Magus, who lived, so they record, five thousand years before the siege of Troy. He used to call the one Horomazes and the other Areimanius" (Isis and Osiris 46-7).

In the post-classical era

Zoroaster was known as a sage, magician, and miracle-worker in post-Classical Western culture. Although almost nothing was known of his ideas until the late 18th century, his name was already associated with lost ancient wisdom. However as early as 1643 Sir Thomas Browne in his Religio Medici wrote-

''I beleeve, besides Zoroaster, there were divers that writ before Moses (R.M.Part 1:23)

whilst in The Garden of Cyrus of 1658 he speculated-

And if Zoroaster were either Cham,Chus,or Mizraim, they were early proficients thereof....

These statements by Sir Thomas Browne are the earliest recorded references to Zoroaster in the English language.

Zoroaster appears as "Sarastro" in Mozart's opera Die Zauberflöte, which has been noted for its Masonic elements, where he represents moral order (cf. Asha) in opposition to the "Queen of the Night."

He is also the subject of the 1749 opera Zoroastre, by Jean-Philippe Rameau.

Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire promoted research into Zoroastrianism in the belief that it was a form of rational Deism, preferable to Christianity. With the translation of the Avesta by Abraham Anquetil-Duperron, Western scholarship of Zoroastrianism began.

In his seminal work Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra) (1885) the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche uses the native Iranian name Zarathustra (i.e. the Persian Zarathustra, as opposed to the Greek-Latin name Zoroaster) which has a significant meaning as he had used the familiar Greek-Latin name in his earlier works. In particular that Nietzsche states explicitly "I must pay tribute to Zarathustra, a Persian (): Persians were the first who thought of history in its full entirety." It is believed that Nietzsche creates a characterization of Zarathustra as the mouthpiece for Nietzsche's own ideas against morality. Nietzsche did so because—so says Nietzsche in his autobiographical Ecce Homo (IV/Schicksal.3)—Zarathustra was a moralist ("was the exact reverse of an immoralist") and because "in his teachings alone is truthfulness upheld as the highest virtue." Zarathustra "created" morality in being the first to reveal it, "first to see in the struggle between good and evil the essential wheel in the working of things." Nietzsche sought to overcome the morality of Zarathustra by using the Zarathustrian virtue of truthfulness; thus Nietzsche found it piquant to have his Zarathustra character voice the arguments against morality.

Richard Strauss's Opus 30, inspired by Nietzsche's book, is also called Also sprach Zarathustra. Its opening theme, which corresponds to the book's prologue, was used to score the opening sequence of Stanley Kubrick's movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Zoroaster was mentioned by the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. His wife and he were said to have claimed to have contacted Zoroaster through "automatic writing".

The protagonist and narrator of Gore Vidal's 1981 novel Creation is described to be the grandson of Zoroaster, with whom the narrator has several philosophical discussions and whose death he is a witness of.

Zoroaster mentioned in Don Quixote [1605]: "...in spite of all the black magic possessed by the first inventor Zoroaster..." (p. 398...?)

In chapter CX of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick [1851], the sickly Queequeg is briefly compared to Zoroaster. "An awe that cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of this waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any beheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died."

In 1973 Roxy Music released their "Stranded" album with the song "Mother of Pearl" which has lyrical reference to Zarathustra at approximately 3:09 seconds into the song.

In other religious systems

In Islam

Citing the authority of the 8th century al-Kalbi, the 9th/10th century historian al-Tabari (i.648) reports that Zaradusht bin Isfiman (an Arabic adaptation of "Zarathustra Spitama") was an inhabitant of Palestine, and a servant of one of the disciples of the prophet Jeremiah. According to this tale, Zaradusht defrauded his master, who cursed him, causing him to become leprous (cf. Elisha's servant Gehazi in Jewish Scripture). The apostate Zaradusht then eventually made his way to Balkh where he converted Bishtasb (i.e. Vishtaspa), who in turn compelled his subjects to adopt the religion of the Magians. Recalling other tradition, al-Tabari (i.681-683) recounts that Zaradusht accompanied a Jewish prophet to Bishtasb/Vishtaspa. Upon their arrival, Zaradusht translated the sage's Hebrew teachings for the king and so convinced him to convert (Tabari also notes that they had previously been Sabis) to the Magian religion.

The 10th/11th century heresiographer al-Shahrastani describes the Majusiya into three sects, the Kayumarthiya, the Zurwaniya and the Zaradushtiya, among which Al-Shahrastani asserts that only the last of the three were properly followers of Zoroaster. As regards the recognition of a prophet, the Zoroaster has said: "They ask you as to how should they recognize a prophet and believe him to be true in what he says; tell them what he knows the others do not, and he shall tell you even what lies hidden in your nature; he shall be able to tell you whatever you ask him and he shall perform such things which others cannot perform." (Namah Shat Vakhshur Zartust, .5-7. 50–54) Shortly before the advent of the prophet of Islam, [Muhammad], Persia was under the sovereignty of Sasan V. When the companions of the Prophet, on invading Persia, came in contact with the Zoroastrian people and learned these teachings, they at once came to the conclusion that Zoroaster was really a Divinely inspired prophet. Thus they accorded the same treatment to the Zoroastrian people which they did to other "People of the Book." Though the name of Zoroaster is not mentioned in the Qur'an, still he was regarded as one of those prophets whose names have not been mentioned in the Qur'an, for there is a verse in the Qur'an: "And We did send apostles before thee: there are some of them that We have mentioned to thee and there are others whom We have not mentioned to Thee." (40 : 78). Accordingly the Muslims treated the founder of Zoroastrianism as a true prophet and believed in his religion as they did in other inspired creeds, and thus according to the prophecy, protected the Zoroastrian religion. James Darmestar has truly remarked in the translation of Zend Avesta: "When Islam assimilated the Zoroastrians to the People of the Book, it evinced a rare historical sense and solved the problem of the origin of the Avesta." (Introduction to Vendiad. p. 69.)

Ahmadiyya view

Ahmadi Muslims view Zoroaster as a Prophet of God and describe the expressions of Ahura Mazda, the God of goodness and Ahraman, the God of evil as merely referring to the coexistence of forces of good and evil enabling humans to exercise free will.

In Manichaeism

Manichaeism considered Zoroaster to be a figure (along with Jesus and the Buddha) in a line of prophets of which Mani (216–276) was the culmination. Zoroaster's ethical dualism is—to an extent—incorporated in Mani's doctrine, which viewed the world as being locked in an epic battle between opposing forces of good and evil. Manicheanism also incorporated other elements of Zoroastrian tradition, particularly the names of supernatural beings; however, many of these other Zoroastrian elements are either not part of Zoroaster's own teachings or are used quite differently from how they are used in Zoroastrianism.

In the Bahá'í Faith

Zoroaster appears in the Bahá'í Faith as a "Manifestation of God", one of a line of prophets who have progressively revealed the Word of God to a gradually maturing humanity. Zoroaster thus shares an exalted station with Abraham, Moses, Gautama Buddha, Krishna, Jesus, Muhammad, the Báb, and the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, Bahá'u'lláh. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith, saw Bahá'u'lláh as the fulfillment of a post-Sassanid Zoroastrian prophecy that saw a return of Sassanid emperor Bahram: Shoghi Effendi also stated that Zoroaster lived roughly 1000 years before Jesus or 3500 years before present.

See also

List of founders of major religions

Zartosht Bahram e Pazhdo (author of a Persian epic biography on Zoroaster)

Notes

{| |- |valign="top"|a:||Originally proposed by Burnouf |- |valign="top"|b:||For refutation of these and other proposals, see Humbach, 1991. |- |valign="top"|c:||The Bundahishn computes "200 and some years" (GBd xxxvi.9) or "284 years" (IBd xxxiv.9). That '258 years' was the generally accepted figure is however noted by al-Biruni and al-Masudi, with the latter specifically stating (in 943/944 AD) that "the Magians count a period of two hundred and fifty-eight years between their prophet and Alexander." |- |valign="top"|d:||"258 years before Alexander," is only superficially precise, and thus debated. What in Zoroaster's life happened 258 before Alexander? His birth? His enlightenment? His conversion of Vistaspa? His death? Similarly, before Alexander's what? His accession to the Macedonian throne? His invasion? His death? The beginning of the "Era of Alexander" (which began 10 years after his death)?

It has been suggested that this "traditional date" is an adoption of some date from foreign sources, from the Greeks or the Babylonians for example, which the priesthood then reinterpreted. A simpler explanation is that the priests subtracted 42 (the age at which Zoroaster is said to have converted Vistaspa) from the round figure of 300. |- |valign="top"|e:||The "extravagant," "fantastic" and "extraordinary" 6000 BCE date (or thereabouts) appears in several classical sources: Pliny the Elder (1st c.), Plutarch (1st c.), a Scholion to the (Pseudo-)Platonic Alcibiades Major, Diogenes Laertius (3rd c.), Lactantius (3rd c.) and Syncellus (8th c.). The date is typically described as "5,000 years before the Trojan war" or "6,000 years before Plato" (or "before Xerxes"). "Their chief claim to any consideration" is that these sources cite the authority of (variously) Hermippus (5th c. BCE), Xanthus of Lydia (5th c. BCE), Eudoxus of Cnidus (5th/4th c. BCE), Aristotle (4th c. BCE) and Hermodorus (4th c. BCE, a student of Plato's). In general, the 6000 BCE date is assumed to be based on a Greek misunderstanding of the (Zoroastrian) "great-year" cycles, which foresees recurring 12,000-year periods of three 3,000-year segments each.

Other classical sources—again on the authority of Xanthus of Lydia—consider "600 years before Xerxes" (i.e. before his invasion of Greece), i.e. 1080 BCE, which would then coincide with the linguistic dating of the Gathas. Similarly, the tenth c. Suda, which cites no one but provides a date of "500 years before Plato" for one of its two Zoroasters. |- |valign="top"|f:||Ecce Homo quotations are per the Ludovici translation. Paraphrases follow the original passage (Warum ich ein Schicksal bin 3), available in the public domain on page 45 of the Project Gutenberg EBook. |- |valign="top"|s:||By choosing the name of 'Zarathustra' as prophet of his philosophy, as he has expressed clearly, he followed the paradoxical aim of paying homage to the original Aryan prophet and reversing his teachings at the same time. The original Zoroastrian world view interprets being essentially on a moralistic basis and depicts the world as an arena for the struggle of the two fundamentals of being, Good and Evil, represented in two antagonistic divine figures. |- |valign="top"|z:||From a letter of the Universal House of Justice, Department of the Secretariat, May 13, 1979 to Mrs. Gayle Woolson published in :. p. 501. |}

References

Bibliography

. . . Cf. especially Chapter IV: Prophets Outside Israel

External links

Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2009.

Category:Ancient Iranian poets Category:Founders of religions Category:Year of birth unknown Category:Year of death unknown Category:6th-century BC philosophers

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Richard Georg Strauss (11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra, An Alpine Symphony, and Metamorphosen. Strauss was also a prominent conductor throughout Germany and Austria.

Strauss, along with Gustav Mahler, represents the late flowering of German Romanticism after Richard Wagner, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style.

Life and works

Early life and family

Strauss was born on 11 June 1864, in Munich, the son of Franz Strauss, who was the principal horn player at the Court Opera in Munich. In his youth, he received a thorough musical education from his father. He wrote his first music at the age of six, and continued to write music almost until his death.

During his boyhood Strauss attended orchestra rehearsals of the Munich Court Orchestra, and he also received private instruction in music theory and orchestration from an assistant conductor there. In 1874 Strauss heard his first Wagner operas, Lohengrin and Tannhäuser. The influence of Wagner's music on Strauss's style was to be profound, but at first his musically conservative father forbade him to study it. Indeed, in the Strauss household, the music of Richard Wagner was viewed with deep suspicion, and it was not until the age of 16 that Strauss was able to obtain a score of Tristan und Isolde. In later life, Richard Strauss said that he deeply regretted the conservative hostility to Wagner's progressive works. Nevertheless, Strauss's father undoubtedly had a crucial influence on his son's developing taste, not least in Strauss's abiding love for the horn.

In 1882 he entered Munich University, where he studied Philosophy and Art History, but not music. He left a year later to go to Berlin, where he studied briefly before securing a post as assistant conductor to Hans von Bülow, who had been enormously impressed by the young composer's Serenade for wind instruments, composed when he was only 16 years of age. Strauss learned the art of conducting by observing Bülow in rehearsal. Bülow was very fond of the young man and decided that Strauss should be his successor as conductor of the Meiningen orchestra when Bülow resigned in 1885. Strauss's compositions at this time were indebted to the style of Robert Schumann or Felix Mendelssohn, true to his father's teachings. His remarkably mature Horn Concerto No. 1, Op. 11, is representative of this period and is a staple of modern horn repertoire.

Richard Strauss married soprano Pauline de Ahna on 10 September 1894. She was famous for being irascible, garrulous, eccentric and outspoken, but the marriage, to all appearances, was essentially happy and she was a great source of inspiration to him. Throughout his life, from his earliest songs to the final Four Last Songs of 1948, he preferred the soprano voice to all others, and all his operas contain important soprano roles.

The Strausses had one son, Franz, in 1897. Franz married Alice von Grab, a Jewish woman, in a Catholic ceremony in 1924. Franz and Alice had two sons, Richard and Christian.

Works

Solo and chamber works

Some of Strauss's first compositions were solo and chamber works. These pieces include: early compositions for piano solo in a conservative harmonic style, many of which are lost; a string quartet (opus 2); a cello sonata; a piano quartet; Violin Sonata in E flat (1888); as well as a handful of late pieces.

After 1890 Strauss composed very infrequently for chamber groups, his energies being almost completely absorbed with large-scale orchestral works and operas. Four of his chamber pieces are actually arrangements of portions of his operas, including the Daphne-Etude for solo violin, and the string Sextet which is the overture to his final opera Capriccio. His last independent chamber work, an Allegretto in E for violin and piano, dates from 1940.

Tone poems and other orchestral works

Strauss's style began to truly develop and change when, in 1885, he met Alexander Ritter, a noted composer and violinist, and the husband of one of Richard Wagner's nieces. It was Ritter who persuaded Strauss to abandon the conservative style of his youth, and begin writing tone poems. He also introduced Strauss to the essays of Richard Wagner and the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer. Strauss went on to conduct one of Ritter's operas, and at Strauss's request Ritter later wrote a poem describing the events depicted in Strauss's tone poem Death and Transfiguration.

The new influences from Ritter resulted in what is widely regarded as Strauss's first piece to show his mature personality, the tone poem Don Juan (1888), which displays a new kind of virtuosity in its bravura orchestral manner. Strauss went on to write a series of increasingly ambitious tone poems: Death and Transfiguration (Tod und Verklärung, 1889), Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, 1895), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra, 1896), Don Quixote (1897), Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life, 1898), Sinfonia Domestica (Domestic Symphony, 1903) and An Alpine Symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie, 1911–1915). One commentator has observed of these works that "no orchestra could exist without his tone poems, written to celebrate the glories of the post-Wagnerian symphony orchestra."

Solo instrument with orchestra

Strauss's output of works for solo instrument or instruments with orchestra was fairly extensive. The most famous include two concertos for horn, which are still part of the standard repertoire of most horn soloists; a Violin Concerto in D minor; the Burleske for piano and orchestra; the tone poem Don Quixote for cello, viola and orchestra; the well-known late Oboe Concerto in D major; and the Duet-Concertino for bassoon, clarinet and orchestra, which was one of his last works (1947).

Opera

Around the end of the 19th century, Strauss turned his attention to opera. His first two attempts in the genre, Guntram (1894) and Feuersnot (1901), were controversial works: Guntram was the first significant critical failure of Strauss's career, and Feuersnot was considered obscene by some critics.

In 1905, Strauss produced Salome, based on the play by Oscar Wilde, which produced a passionate reaction from audiences. The premiere was a major success, with the artists taking more than 38 curtain calls. Many later performances of the opera were also successful, not only with the general public but also with Strauss's peers: Maurice Ravel said that Salome was "stupendous", and Mahler described it as "a live volcano, a subterranean fire". Strauss reputedly financed his house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen completely from the revenues generated by the opera.

Strauss's next opera was Elektra (1909), which took his use of dissonance even further, in particular with the Elektra chord. Elektra was also the first opera in which Strauss collaborated with the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The two subsequently worked together on numerous occasions. For his later works with Hofmannsthal, Strauss moderated his harmonic language somewhat, which resulted in operas such as Der Rosenkavalier (1911) having great public success. Strauss continued to produce operas at regular intervals until 1942. With Hofmannsthal he created Ariadne auf Naxos (1912), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1918), Die ägyptische Helena (1927), and Arabella (1932). For Intermezzo (1923) Strauss provided his own libretto. Die schweigsame Frau (1934), was composed with Stefan Zweig as librettist; Friedenstag (1935–6) and Daphne (1937) both had a libretto by Joseph Gregor and Stefan Zweig; and Die Liebe der Danae (1940) was with Joseph Gregor. Strauss's final opera, Capriccio (1942), had a libretto by Clemens Krauss, although the genesis for it came from Stefan Zweig and Joseph Gregor.

Lieder

All his life Strauss produced Lieder. The Four Last Songs are among his best known, along with "Zueignung", "Cäcilie", "Morgen!", "Allerseelen", and others. In 1948, Strauss wrote his last work, the masterful and haunting Four Last Songs for soprano and orchestra. He reportedly composed them with Kirsten Flagstad in mind, and she gave the first performance, which was recorded. Strauss's songs have always been popular with audiences and performers, and are generally considered – along with many of his other compositions – to be masterpieces of the first rank.

Strauss in Nazi Germany

The Nazi Reich forms the Reichsmusikkammer

In March 1933, when Richard Strauss was 68, Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power. Strauss never joined the Nazi party, and studiously avoided Nazi forms of greeting. For reasons of expediency, however, he was initially drawn into cooperating with the early Nazi regime in the hope that Hitler – an ardent Wagnerian and music lover who had admired Strauss's work since viewing Salome in 1907 – would promote German art and culture. Strauss's need to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law and Jewish grandchildren also motivated his behavior, in addition to his determination to preserve and conduct the music of banned composers such as Mahler and Debussy.

In 1933, Strauss wrote in his private notebook:

I consider the Streicher-Goebbels Jew-baiting as a disgrace to German honour, as evidence of incompetence – the basest weapon of untalented, lazy mediocrity against a higher intelligence and greater talent.

Meanwhile, far from being an admirer of Strauss's work, Joseph Goebbels maintained expedient cordiality with Strauss only for a period. Goebbels wrote in his diary:

Unfortunately we still need him, but one day we shall have our own music and then we shall have no further need of this decadent neurotic.

Nevertheless, because of Strauss's international eminence, in November 1933 he was appointed to the post of president of the Reichsmusikkammer, the State Music Bureau. Strauss, who had lived through numerous political regimes and had no interest in politics, decided to accept the position but to remain apolitical, a decision which would eventually become untenable. He wrote to his family, "I made music under the Kaiser, and under Ebert. I'll survive under this one as well." In 1935 he wrote in his journal:

In November of 1933, the minister Goebbels nominated me president of the Reichsmusikkammer without obtaining my prior agreement. I was not consulted. I accepted this honorary office because I hoped that I would be able to do some good and prevent worse misfortunes, if from now onwards German musical life were going to be, as it was said, "reorganized" by amateurs and ignorant place-seekers.

Strauss privately scorned Goebbels and called him "a pipsqueak." In order to gain Goebbels' cooperation, however, in extending the German music copyright laws from 30 years to 50 years, in 1933 Strauss dedicated an orchestral song, Das Bächlein ("The Little Brook") to him.

Strauss attempted to ignore Nazi bans on performances of works by Debussy, Mahler, and Mendelssohn. He also continued to work on a comic opera, Die schweigsame Frau, with his Jewish friend and librettist Stefan Zweig. When the opera was premiered in Dresden in 1935, Strauss insisted that Zweig's name appear on the theatrical billing, much to the ire of the Nazi regime. Hitler and Goebbels avoided attending the opera, and it was halted after three performances and subsequently banned by the Third Reich.

On 17 June 1935, Strauss wrote a letter to Stefan Zweig, in which he stated:

Do you believe I am ever, in any of my actions, guided by the thought that I am 'German'? Do you suppose Mozart was consciously 'Aryan' when he composed? I recognise only two types of people: those who have talent and those who have none.

This letter to Zweig was intercepted by the Gestapo and sent to Hitler. Strauss was subsequently dismissed from his post as Reichsmusikkammer president in 1935. The 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics nevertheless used Strauss's Olympische Hymne, which he had composed in 1934. Strauss's seeming relationship with the Nazis in the 1930s attracted criticism from some noted musicians, including Arturo Toscanini, who in 1933 had said, "To Strauss the composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again," when Strauss had accepted the presidency of the Reichsmusikkammer. Much of Strauss's motivation in his conduct during the Third Reich was, however, to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law Alice and his Jewish grandchildren from persecution. Both of his grandsons were bullied at school, but Strauss used his considerable influence to prevent the boys or their mother from being sent to concentration camps.

Friedenstag

In 1938, when the entire nation was preparing for war, Strauss created Friedenstag (Peace Day), a one-act opera set in a besieged fortress during the Thirty Years' War. The work is essentially a hymn to peace and a thinly veiled criticism of the Third Reich. With its contrasts between freedom and enslavement, war and peace, light and dark, this work has a close affinity with Beethoven's Fidelio. Productions of the opera ceased shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939.

When his Jewish daughter-in-law Alice was placed under house arrest in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1938, Strauss used his connections in Berlin, including the Berlin intendant Heinz Tietjen, to secure her safety. He drove to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in order to argue, albeit unsuccessfully, for the release of his son Franz's Jewish mother-in-law, Marie von Grab. Strauss also wrote several letters to the SS pleading for the release of her children who were also held in camps; his letters were ignored.

In 1942, Strauss moved with his family back to Vienna, where Alice and her children could be protected by Baldur von Schirach, the Gauleiter of Vienna. Strauss was unable, however, to protect his Jewish relatives completely; in early 1944, while Strauss was away, Alice and his son Franz were abducted by the Gestapo and imprisoned for two nights. Only Strauss's personal intervention at this point was able to save them, and he was able to take the two of them back to Garmisch, where they remained under house arrest until the end of the war.

Metamorphosen

Strauss completed the composition of Metamorphosen, a work for 23 solo strings, in 1945. The title and inspiration for the work comes from a profoundly self-examining poem by Goethe, which Strauss had considered setting as a choral work. Generally regarded as one of the masterpieces of the string repertoire, Metamorphosen contains Strauss's most sustained outpouring of tragic emotion. Conceived and written during the blackest days of World War II, the piece expresses in music Strauss's mourning of, among other things, the destruction of German culture – including the bombing of every great opera house in the nation. At the end of the war, Strauss wrote in his private diary:

The most terrible period of human history is at an end, the twelve year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany's 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom.

In April 1945, Strauss was apprehended by American soldiers at his Garmisch estate. As he descended the staircase he announced to Lieutenant Milton Weiss of the U.S. Army, "I am Richard Strauss, the composer of Rosenkavalier and Salome." Lt. Weiss, who, as it happened, was also a musician, nodded in recognition. An 'Off Limits' sign was subsequently placed on the lawn to protect Strauss. The American oboist John de Lancie, who knew Strauss's orchestral writing for oboe thoroughly, was in the army unit, and asked Strauss to compose an oboe concerto. Initially dismissive of the idea, Strauss completed this late masterpiece, his Oboe Concerto, before the end of the year.

Final upsurge of genius

The metaphor "Indian Summer" is often used by journalists, biographers, and music critics to describe Strauss's late upsurge of genius from 1942 through the end of his life. The horrifying events of World War II seemed to bring the composer – who had grown old, tired, and a little jaded – into focus. The major works of the last years of Strauss's life, written in his late 70s and 80s, have a luminosity which matches anything he had composed earlier in his life, and they surpass most of them in emotional depth. These pieces include, among others, his Horn Concerto No. 2, Metamorphosen, his Oboe Concerto, and his masterful and haunting Four Last Songs.

The Four Last Songs, composed shortly before Strauss's death, deal poetically with the subject of dying. The last, "At Sunset" (Im Abendrot), ends with the line "Is this perhaps death?" The question is not answered in words, but instead Strauss quotes the "transfiguration theme" from his earlier tone poem, Death and Transfiguration – symbolizing the transfiguration and fulfillment of the soul after death.

Death and legacy

Richard Strauss died at the age of 85 on 8 September 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Georg Solti, who had arranged Strauss's 85th birthday celebration, also directed an orchestra during Strauss's burial. During the singing of the famous trio from Rosenkavalier, Solti described how "each singer broke down in tears and dropped out of the ensemble, but they recovered themselves and we all ended together." Strauss's wife, Paulina, died eight months later, on 13 May 1950, at the age of 88.

During his lifetime Strauss was considered the greatest composer of the first half of the 20th century, and his music had a profound influence on the development of 20th-century music. There were few 20th-century composers who compared with Strauss in terms of orchestral imagination, and no composer since Wagner made a more significant contribution to the history of opera. And Strauss's late works, modelled on "the divine Mozart at the end of a life full of thankfulness," are perhaps the most remarkable works by any octogenarian composer.

Strauss himself declared in 1947 with characteristic self-deprecation, "I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer." The Canadian pianist Glenn Gould described Strauss in 1962 as "the greatest musical figure who has lived in this century."

Strauss as a conductor

Strauss, as conductor, made a large number of recordings, both of his own music as well as music by German and Austrian composers.

His 1929 performances of Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra have long been considered the best of his early electrical recordings; even the original 78 rpm discs had superior sound for their time, and the performances were top-notch and quite exciting at times, despite a noticeable mistake by the Horn soloist in the famous opening passage of Till Eulenspiegel.

One of the more interesting of Strauss's recordings is perhaps the first complete performance of his An Alpine Symphony, made in 1941 and later released by EMI, because Strauss used the full complement of percussion instruments required in this spectacular symphony. The intensity of the performance rivaled that of the digital recording Herbert von Karajan made many years later with the Berlin Philharmonic.

Music critic Harold C. Schonberg in The Great Conductors (1967), says that while Strauss was a very fine conductor, he often put scant effort into his recordings. Schonberg focused primarily on Strauss's recordings of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, as well as noting that Strauss played a breakneck version of Beethoven's 9th Symphony in about 45 minutes. Concerning the Beethoven 7th symphony, Schonberg wrote, "There is almost never a ritard or a change in expression or nuance. The slow movement is almost as fast as the following vivace; and the last movement, with a big cut in it, is finished in 4 minutes, 25 seconds. (It should run between 7 and 8 minutes.)" Schonberg also complained that the Mozart symphony had "no force, no charm, no inflection, with a metronomic rigidity."

Peter Gutmann's 1994 review for ClassicalNotes.com says the performances of the Beethoven 5th and 7th symphonies, as well as Mozart's last three symphonies, are actually quite good, even if they are sometimes unconventional. Gutman wrote:

The Koch CDs represent all of Strauss's recordings of works by other composers. The best of his readings of his own famous tone poems and other music are collected on DGG 429 925-2, 3 CDs. It is true, as the critics suggest, that the readings forego overt emotion, but what emerges instead is a solid sense of structure, letting the music speak convincingly for itself. It is also true that Strauss's tempos are generally swift, but this, too, contributes to the structural cohesion and in any event is fully in keeping with our modern outlook in which speed is a virtue and attention spans are defined more by MTV clips and news sound bites than by evenings at the opera and thousand page novels.

Koch Legacy has also released Strauss's recordings of overtures by Gluck, Carl Maria von Weber, Peter Cornelius, and Wagner. The preference for German and Austrian composers in Germany in the 1920s through the 1940s was typical of the German nationalism that existed after World War I. Strauss clearly capitalized on national pride for the great German-speaking composers.

There were many other recordings, including some taken from radio broadcasts and concerts, during the 1930s and early 1940s. The sheer volume of recorded performances would undoubtedly yield some definitive performances from a very capable and rather forward-looking conductor.

In 1944, Strauss celebrated his 80th birthday and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in recordings of his own major orchestral works, as well as his seldom-heard Schlagobers ("Whipped Cream") ballet music. Some find more feeling in these performances than in Strauss's earlier recordings, which were recorded on the Magnetophon tape recording equipment. Vanguard Records later issued the recordings on LPs. Some of these recordings have been reissued on CD by Preiser and are of remarkable fidelity.

Strauss also made live-recording player piano music rolls for the Hupfeld system, all of which survive today.

Richard Strauss was the composer of the music on the first CD to be commercially released: Deutsche Grammophon's 1983 release of their 1980 recording of Herbert von Karajan conducting the Alpine Symphony.

Works

Selected major works

Operas

:See List of operas by Richard Strauss

Ballet music

Josephslegende (The Legend of Joseph), Op. 63 (1914)

Schlagobers (Whipped Cream), Op. 70 (1921/2)

Tone poems

Aus Italien (From Italy), Op. 16 (1886)

Don Juan, Op. 20 (1889)

Macbeth, Op. 23 (1888/90)

Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), Op. 24 (1888–89)

Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks), Op. 28 (1895)

Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra), Op. 30 (1896)

Don Quixote, Op. 35 (1898)

Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), Op. 40 (1899)

Symphonia Domestica (Domestic Symphony), Op. 53 (1904)

Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony), Op. 64 (1915)

Other orchestral works

Symphony in D minor (1880)

Symphony No. 2 in F minor, Op. 12 (1883)

Festive Prelude for orchestra with organ (1913)

Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, suite for orchestra Op. 60 (1917)

Film music for Der Rosenkavalier (1925)

Japanese Festival Music (1940)

Metamorphosen, for 23 solo strings (1945)

Keyboard

Funf Klavierstucke, Op. 3 (1880–81)

Sonata for piano in B minor, Op. 5 (1880–81)

Concertante

Romance for Clarinet and Orchestra (1879)

Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 8 (1882)

Horn Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 11 (1882/83)

Romance for Cello and Orchestra (1883)

Burleske for piano and orchestra (1886–1890)

Parergon zur Symphonia Domestica, for piano (left hand) and orchestra, Op. 73 (1925; ded. Paul Wittgenstein)

Panathenäenzug, for piano (left hand) and orchestra, Op. 74 (1926–1927; ded. Wittgenstein)

Horn Concerto No. 2 in E flat major (1942)

Oboe Concerto in D major (1945)

Duett-Concertino, for clarinet and bassoon with string orchestra (1947)

Vocal/Choral

Acht Lieder aus Letzte Blätter, Op. 10 (1885)

Ruhe, meine Seele! ("Rest, My Soul!") Op. 27 No. 1

Cäcilie, Op. 27 No. 2

Heimliche Aufforderung ("Secret Invitation"), Op. 27 No. 3

Morgen! ("Tomorrow!"), Op. 27 No. 4

Zwei Gesänge, Op. 34 (1896/97) – 1. Der Abend 2. Hymne

Wiegenlied ("Lullaby"), Op. 41 No. 1

Deutsche Motette, Op. 62 (1913)

Olympische Hymne, for chorus and orchestra (1934)

Die Göttin im Putzzimmer (1935)

Männerchöre (1935)

An den Baum Daphne (1943)

Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) (1948)

Chamber

Sonata for Cello and Piano in F, Op. 6 (1883)

Violin Sonata in E-flat, Op. 18 (1888)

Notes

Sources

Kennedy, Michael (1999). Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-58173-7.

Kennedy, Michael. "Richard Strauss", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2

Kennedy, Michael (2006). The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 985 pages, ISBN 0-19-861459-4

Gilliam, Bryan. "Richard Strauss", in Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed 19 August 2005), (subscription access) (This article is very different from the one in the 1980 Grove; in particular, the analysis of Strauss's behavior during the Nazi period is more detailed.)

Dubal, David. The Essential Canon of Classical Music, North Point Press, 2003. ISBN 0-86547-664-0

Selective bibliography

Kennedy, Michael (1999). Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-58173-7.

Del Mar, Norman (1962). Richard Strauss. London: Barrie & Jenkins. ISBN 0-214-15735-0.

Tuchman, Barbara W. (1966, reprinted 1980). The Proud Tower chapter 6. Macmillan, London. ISBN 0-333-30645-7.

Gilliam, Bryan (1999). The Life of Richard Strauss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-57895-7.

Osborne, Charles (1991). The Complete Operas of Richard Strauss. New York City: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80459-X.

Wilhelm, Kurt (1989). Richard Strauss: An Intimate Portrait. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-01459-0.

Youmans, Charles (2005). Richard Strauss's Orchestral Music and the German Intellectual Tradition: the Philosophical Roots of Musical Modernism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34573-1.

Karpath, Ludwig and Strauss, Richard (1905–1936). The handwritten correspondence between Richard Strauss and Ludwig Karpath, covering 31 years was acquired by the National Library of Austria in 1962 from the daughters of Dr. Alfred Marill who was Mr. Karpath's attorney. It consists of approximately 150 items covering Strauss relationships with the Vienna State Opera and other musical events of the period. It stops at the death of Ludwig Karpath in 1936. Dr. Alfred Marill was Mr. Karpath's executor. The terms of Karpath's will stipulated that the correspondence between Karpath and Strauss not be published until after Richard Strauss's death. In keeping with these terms Dr. Marill transported it to the United States when he emigrated in 1940. After Dr. Marill's death his daughters provided the letters to the library so that Mr. Karpath's wishes could be carried out. There is no evidence that these letters have been published.

External links

Richard Strauss online

Richard Strauss Institute, in English

In America with Richard Strauss: Elisabeth Schumann's 1921 diary

Category:1864 births Category:1949 deaths Category:20th-century classical composers Category:German conductors (music) Category:Opera composers Category:Opera managers Category:People from Munich Category:People from the Kingdom of Bavaria Category:Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists Category:Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Category:Romantic composers Category:Ballet composers Category:German composers Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society Category:General Directors of the Vienna State Opera Category:Music directors of the Berlin State Opera Category:Members of the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art Category:German atheists

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Eumir Deodato (full name Eumir Deodato de Almeida, born 22 June 1943, Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian musician, record producer and arranger, primarily based in the jazz realm but who historically has been known for eclectic melding of big band and combo jazz with varied elements of rock/pop, R&B;/funk, Brazilian/Latin, and symphonic or orchestral music. Mainly, his records can be categorized as pop/jazz or crossover jazz. His successes as an original artist (keyboards) occurred mainly in the 1970s. Since then, he has produced or arranged music in more than 500 albums for acts ranging from Kool and the Gang to Björk, Christophe and k.d. lang. His daughter, Kennya Deodato, is married to American actor Stephen Baldwin.

Biography

Brazil

Deodato was born of Italian and Portuguese parents. He is a musical autodidact, starting with the accordion at age 12 but rapidly learning instrumental and orchestral skills that culminated in his first recording session at age 17. Originally working as pianist and arranger in the Rio bossa nova scene, he rapidly outgrew this and, along with many other Brazilian musicians during the military dictatorship in their country, moved to New York, working with composer Luiz Bonfá and later with producer Creed Taylor as an arranger. Additionally, he became keyboardist in Taylor's expanding group of backing artists.

Recording career

His first album in the U.S., Prelude, released in 1972, was of a big band Latin jazz style that immediately attracted a wide audience. The album was produced by Creed Taylor on his CTI (Creed Taylor Inc.) label. The nine-minute funky version of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra, entitled "Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)", won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. It went to No. 2 in the pop charts in the US, No. 3 in Canada, and No. 7 in the UK and was CTI's biggest single. The album climbed to #3 in the Billboard chart, the label's best-selling album and an amazing sales achievement for a jazz-based release. It was subsequently used to great effect in the 1979 film Being There, starring Peter Sellers and Shirley Maclaine. It has also been covered extensively by the rock band Phish in their live performances and included in several of their live releases.

His second album, Deodato 2, despite being of the same style and quality, failed to sell as well, but climbed to number 19 in the Billboard album chart, whilst the single, "Rhapsody In Blue" reached #41 on the Hot 100 in 1973. His early career records used guitarist John Tropea and quintessential jazz fusion flautist Hubert Laws. Deodato continued recording until the late 1980s on the Warner Bros label, but never reached the level of his early successes, although two singles, "SOS, Fire In The Sky" and "Are You For Real", were Top 20 Billboard Dance hits in 1985.

Producer and arranger

Deodato has been in demand as a producer and arranger since the 1960s. In all, he has worked on more than 500 albums, fifteen of which have reached platinum. His skills as an arranger provided entree to the American recording industry, writing charts for Wes Montgomery, compatriot chanteuse Astrud Gilberto, and most notably Frank Sinatra, the results of which were released as the bossa nova side of Sinatra's 1971 LP, Sinatra & Company. Other collaborations have included production duties for Kool and the Gang in the early 1980s, the first solo album by Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners in 1988 and orchestrations for Björk on her 1997 album Homogenic. Deodato had previously worked on Björk's song "Isobel", making a mix which was later released on her album Telegram, produced by Björk, Nellee Hooper, Tricky, Howie B. and Deodato himself. In 2007 Deodato co-produced the single called "Paris, Tokyo" which is on the album Lupe Fiasco's The Cool. He has also written scores for a number of films.

He also recorded a live album in Rio in 2007 called Eumir Deodato Trio – ao vivo no Rio (Eumir Deodato Trio, Live in Rio). In 2010, Deodato relesed the CD, The crossing, produced by him in cooperation with Novecento Band, with guest Al Jarreau. In the same year Deodato was cooperating and playing with Riccardo Dalli Cardillo for a new CD released by Marita Pauli singer.

Discography

Albums

1964: Inútil Paisagem

1972: Percepção

1973: Deodato/Donato With João Donato

CTI Albums

1972: Prelude

1973: Deodato 2

1973: Skyscrapers

1974: Deodato/Airto in Concert

1977: 2001 (Renamed reissue of Prelude)

MCA Albums

1974: Whirlwinds

1974: Artistry

1975: First Cuckoo

1976: Very Together

Warner Bros./Atlantic albums

1978: Love Island

1979: Knights of Fantasy

1980: Night Cruiser

1982: Happy Hour

1984: Motion

1989: Somewhere Out There

Recent Albums

1999: Rio Strut

2000: Bossa Nova Soundtrack

2001: Live at the Felt Forum

2002: Summer Samba

2007: Eumir Deodato Trio – ao vivo no Rio Eumir Deodato Trio, Live in Rio:

2010: The Crossing

Singles

"Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)" / "Spirit of Summer" - US Number 2, UK Number 7

"Rhapsody In Blue" / "Super Strut"

"Do It Again" (live) / "Branches" (live) (B-Side is by Airto)

"Moonlight Serenade" / "Havana Strut"

"Theme from Peter Gunn" / "Amani"

"Watusi Strut" / "Watusi Strut" (disco version)

"Uncle Funk" / "Whistle Stop"

"S.O.S. Fire in the Sky" / "East Side Strut" (1984)

"Double Face (feat. Al Jarreau)"

References

External links

The official Eumir Deodato website

Oasis album

Category:1943 births Category:Living people Category:Bossa nova keyboardists Category:Music arrangers Category:Brazilian film score composers Category:Brazilian jazz keyboardists Category:Brazilian pianists Category:Brazilian record producers Category:Brazilian people of Italian descent Category:Brazilian people of Portuguese descent Category:Crossover jazz keyboardists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:People from Rio de Janeiro (city)

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Jonathan Nott (born 25 December 1962, Solihull, England) is an English conductor, the son of a priest at Worcester Cathedral. He was a music student and choral scholar at the University of Cambridge, and also studied singing and flute in Manchester at the Royal Northern College of Music. Nott was also a conducting student in London. He left London to develop his conducting career in Germany via the traditional Kapellmeister system.

Nott made his conducting debut in 1988 at the Opera Festival in Battignano, Italy. In 1989, he was appointed Kapellmeister at the Frankfurt Opera. In 1991, he was appointed Erster Kapellmeister at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, and became interim chief conductor for the 1995–96 season. He later became music director at the Lucerne Theatre and served as principal conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2002.

With the Berlin Philharmonic, Nott recorded several orchestral works of György Ligeti as part of the Teldec contribution to the complete recorded works of Ligeti. Nott became music director of the Ensemble InterContemporain (EIC) in 2000. He relinquished this post in 2003, and immediately took up the position of principal guest conductor of the EIC. He has held that title since then.

Nott became principal conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in January 2000. With the orchestra, he made his New York City conducting debut. Several years after his 2009 contract extension through the 2011-2012 season, in 2011, Nott and the orchestra agreed on a further extension of his contract with the Bamberg Symphony through the 2015-2016 season.

Nott and his wife Helen have three children.

References

External links

CD/SACD Releases with Jonathan Nott by Tudor Recording Zurich

Askonas Holt agency biography

Richard Whitehouse, "Prophet Without UK Honour – Jonathan Nott Interview"

Category:1963 births Category:Living people Category:Old Vigornians Category:English conductors (music)

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