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