It's easy to frame Strauss as a progressive during the early part of his career. Think of the tone poet and the composer of
Salome and
Elektra, and you might be surprised to discover that he, like his backward glancing contemporary Mahler, still relied on the poems contained in Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim's volume
Des Knaben Wunderhorn. 'Für fünfzehn Pfennige' is the second of a set of four songs, published in 1897, shortly after
Also sprach Zarathustra and before
Don Quixote. For all the structural complexity of those works, this is a markedly straightforward song, in which Strauss readily accepts
Wunderhorn common logic, responding in a unison-cum-diatonic manner. So, as ever, the demands of the text dictate the language and form of the song.
Click here to order a copy of Wolfgang Holzmair's survey of Wunderhornlieder, including Strauss's 'Für fünfzehn Pfennige'.
The painting is 'Le Massif' by Ferdinand Hodler.
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