[On Richard Strauss]

Th e second statement appeared in 1914, written while Reger was recuperating at Meran from the last of his serious nervous breakdowns. In observance of Strauss’s fi ftieth birthday, the Austrian paper Der Merker published a set of six essays in May 1914, authored by Richard Specht, Hermann Bahr, Leopold Schmidt, Siegmund von Hausegger, Arthur Seidl, and Richard Mandl. Reger’s statement is appended unobtrusively and without title at the end of the last essay (Mandl’s “Meine Begegnung mit Richard Strauss”). Reger’s portrayal of Strauss as a “thoroughly classical fi gure” might usefully be read against the younger composer’s much more extensive musical tribute to Strauss at fi fty, the Fantasy and Fugue in D minor op. 135b for organ, dedicated to “Meister Richard Strauß in besonderer Verehrung” and composed between 1914 and 1916.