that of Super-man.  These ideas are purely personal, and are not part of some system of philosophy.  The sub-titles of the work are:  Von den Hinterweltern ("Of Religious Ideas"), Von der grossen Sehnsucht ("Of Supreme Aspiration"), Von den Freuden und Leidenschaften ("Of Joys and Passions"), Das Grablied ("The Grave Song"), Von der Wissenschaft ("Of Knowledge"), Der Genesende ("The Convalescent”—­the soul delivered of its desires), Das Tanzlied ("Dancing Song"), Nachtlied ("Night Song").  We are shown a man who, worn out by trying to solve the riddle of the universe, seeks refuge in religion.  Then he revolts against ascetic ideas, and gives way madly to his passions.  But he is quickly sated and disgusted and, weary to death, he tries science, but rejects it again, and succeeds in ridding himself of the uneasiness its knowledge brings by laughter—­the master of the universe—­and the merry dance, that dance of the universe where all the human sentiments enter hand-in-hand—­religious beliefs, unsatisfied desires, passions, disgust, and joy.  “Lift up your hearts on high, my brothers!  Higher still!  And mind you don’t forget your legs!  I have canonised laughter.  You super-men, learn to laugh!"[175] And the dance dies away and is lost in ethereal regions, and Zarathustra is lost to sight while dancing in distant worlds.  But if he has solved the riddle of the universe for himself, he has not solved it for other men; and so, in contrast to the confident knowledge which fills the music, we get the sad note of interrogation at the end.

[Footnote 174:  Composed in 1895-96, and performed for the first time at Frankfort-On-Main in November, 1896.]

[Footnote 175:  Nietzsche.]

There are few subjects that offer richer material for musical expression.  Strauss has treated it with power and dexterity; he has preserved unity in this chaos of passions, by contrasting the Sehnsucht of man with the impassive strength of Nature.  As for the boldness of his conceptions, I need hardly remind those who heard the poem at the Cirque d’ete of the intricate “Fugue of Knowledge,” the trills of the wood wind and the trumpets that voice Zarathustra’s laugh, the dance of the universe, and the audacity of the conclusion which, in the key of B major, finishes up with a note of interrogation, in C natural, repeated three times.

I am far from thinking that the symphony is without a fault.  The themes are of unequal value:  some are quite commonplace; and, in a general way, the working up of the composition is superior to its underlying thought.  I shall come back later on to certain faults in Strauss’s music; here I only want to consider the overflowing life and feverish joy that set these worlds spinning.