ABSTRACT
Even when Mahler took over the directorship of the Hofoper, he was slow to introduce his own music in Vienna, waiting until 1899 to perform one of his symphonies. While Mahler may have been implying that he and Richard Strauss did have much in common, he was being disingenuous. Nevertheless, whatever Mahler may have meant by the "problem of Strauss", it is no secret that Strauss's music was criticized in the same way as Mahler's, in regard to the overwhelming size of the orchestras. In particular, Theodor Helm's harsh dismissal of Strauss's work, the comparison to Hans Makart is not a compliment, is confusing, to say the least. Hans Makart was probably late nineteenth-century Vienna's most famous painter; he was in great demand as a portraitist. With an entirely special art of color, Strauss's orchestration is multicolored and always sounds beautiful, it is now painted, mood is supposed to follow on mood, yet this never quite materializes for the listener.
