Page "Richard Strauss" Paragraph 42

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.