Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Richard Strauss's tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra is one of his most controversial works. Its greatest popularity has been achieved when its connection with Nietzsche's book of the same name has seemed less relevant than its associations with Kubrick's film 2001 - A Space Odyssey. Although its early critical reception was mixed, it is nowadays one of the staples of the virtuoso orchestra, and a standard demonstration piece for innovations in recording technique. Its opening bars have become a kind of icon independent of the rest of the work. This guide examines the intellectual background of the work and considers ways in which it has been received by composers and writers, notably Romain Rolland and Bartok. It also discusses the musical background of Liszt and Wagner which gave rise to the genre, 'tone poem', and provides an analysis of several aspects of Strauss's musical language.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 æFreely after NietzscheÆ
• 2 The Straussian tone poem as drama
• 3 StraussÆs individualism
• 4 Composition and first performance
• 5 Reception
• 6 Narratives
• 7 Structures
• 8 Rhetoric
• Afterword

Author notes provided by Syndetics

John Williamson, Senior Fellow since 1981, was on leave as Chief Economist for South Asia at the World Bank during 1996-99; Economics professor at Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro (1978-81), University of Warwick (1970-77), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1967, 1980), University of York (1963-68), and Princeton University (1962-63); Adviser to the International Monetary Fund (1972-74); & Economic Consultant to the UK Treasury (1968-70). He is author or editor of numerous studies on international monetary & developing world debt issues, including The Crawling Band as an Exchange Rate Regime (1996), What Role for Currency Boards? (1995), Estimating Equilibrium Exchange Rates (1994), The Political Economy of Policy Reform (1993), Latin American Adjustment: How Much Has Happened? (1990) & Targets & Indicators: A Blueprint for the International Coordination of Economic Policy with Marcus Miller (1987). (Bowker Author Biography)