The expression of such views carries with it the terrible consequence of being identified with "The Adversaries," whom Strauss, disarming criticism by a novel method, symbolises in the awful strains quoted as examples 4 and 5 in Mr. Newman's programme. But one must testify according to one's convictions, and I confess that I cannot be reconciled to section 4 of "Heldenleben," and find in section 5 a considerable element of merely curious mystification. The principle of "horizontal listening," which the whole-hog-going Straussians recommend, does not help me. Horizontal listening becomes, beneath the murderous cacophony of that battle section, simply supine listening.
In other parts of the work there is much that is thoroughly worthy of Strauss. Perhaps the most attractive thing of all is the violin solo representing the feminine element in the hero's life-experience. The wayward emotion of that part is rendered by the composer with a truly magical touch that shows with what wonderful freshness he conceives the task of such character-delineation in tones. How different from Chopin's princesses is the Straussian lady! How infinitely more subtle, varied, interesting, and psychologically true! The hero, too, is powerfully sketched, though throughout the section specially devoted to him one is conscious of the gigantic rather than the heroic. Most of the thematic invention is telling--perhaps more so than in "Zarathustra,"--and the "Seelenmalerei" in the love music and afterwards in the renunciation music is all very finely done. Even the drastic musical satire of the "Adversaries" is acceptable enough in its earlier phases. It is the polyphony in the sections of storm and stress that goes wrong. The subject of the work as a whole has the merit of general intelligibleness. But the composer identifies the hero much too insistently with himself; nor does he maintain the consistency of tone that is proper to a work of art. If sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 carried out the promise of sections 1 and 2 we should have a sort of gigantic Gulliverian humoresque. But with section 3 a new atmosphere is conjured up, and henceforth the work gravitates backwards and forwards between two irreconcilable elements--the one drastic, sarcastic, and cataplastic, the other at first subtle, sinuous, and soulful, and afterwards turning towards a mood of religious exaltation and austere contemplation.