Richard Strauss has just finished his latest composition – incidental music to Moliere’s comedy Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, in the German version by H. von Hofmannsthal. It was generally known that Strauss had written the one-act opera Ariadne on Naxos, which should follow the Bourgeois comedy, according to the intentions of Molière. In the comedy, however, the playwright leaves many opportunities for music, and as the comedy must always be given before the Ariadne, Strauss found himself obliged to write incidental music to it. This music will shortly be published, together with the opera.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal has condensed the Molière comedy, which in the original is in five acts, into two acts, in order to keep the comedy and the opera within reasonable length. This condensation was easily made without mutilating the main idea of the work, by leaving out the many bits of topical satire, which time has made unintelligible.
Richard Strauss has written to each of the two acts a small overture, and he also illustrates musically the entries of the various principal characters. The chief person, Monsieur Jourdain, whose only aim is to do everything just like the aristocracy, is characterised by a swaggering flourish of trumpets. He has to show his various gifts, as developed by his masters, in dancing (a pretty minuet), fencing (a lesson with his master, where all the blows and parades are most ingeniously pictured in music), and singing (a small song, during which he is supposed to get entirely out of tune). There is also a ballet of considerable length, danced by the tailor and his assistants, and a charming duet of a shepherd and his cold-hearted lady. At the end of the first act the doors are thrown open, and the audience will hear the band of M. Jourdain practising the overture to Ariadne on Naxos, all the musicians playing at the same time the most difficult passages of their respective parts.
The scoring of this incidental music is chiefly based upon the comparatively small orchestra of Molière’s times – i.e. flutes, oboes, bassoons, trumpet, and solo string quartet, the latter being sometimes reinforced by some extra players. Clarinets and trombone, which Strauss also employs in the score, were not yet in general use at the time, but can hardly be left out nowadays. From time to time there is music for a piano, which is meant to replace the old clavicembalo.
This music will be performed for the first time at the première of the comedy and the Ariadne at the Court Theatre of Stuttgart on October 25, when Herr Strauss will himself conduct, and the stage management will be in the hands of Herr Max Reinhardt, to whom the composer has dedicated the scores of the opera Ariadne on Naxos as well as the incidental music to Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.
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