Bernard Chasan responds to me:

>>Actually I think that a lot of Strausss and Orffs music is pretty hollow.
>>And I see music as a mirror for character: Beethovens fervent energy,
>>Mozarts vitality, Schuberts friendliness, Wagners hysterical eccentricity
>>- they are there in the movie.  And Strauss and Orff are in their music,
>>too.
>
>And so Strauss is "in" the Four Last Songs and a lot of other deeply
>felt music.  which, I suspect, Robert would NOT characterize as hollow.
>Life is complicated.

The Four Last Songs is a complicated matter. I actually find some passages
of them hollow and sugary, other passages touch me deeply.  I am sorry
but Strauss (together with Liszt) is one of the composers I really find
very hard to stand.  The early stuff (Salome and Elektra) is bold but
things like Heldenleben or Sinfonia domestica are terrible.

>As for Schubert, yes, "friendliness " might well be applied to the Trout
>Quintet and a lot else, but it misses the mark in Die Winterreise and
>the Erl King, among many other examples.

True.  Exceptions that prove the rule.

Robert