Richard Strauss

Strauss, Richard (1864–1949), German composer and conductor, the last of the great Romantic composers. He leapt to fame with the tone poem Don Juan (1888). Other symphonic poems include Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (1895), Thus Spake Zarathustra (1896), Don Quixote (1898), and A Hero's Life (1898). After 1900 he concentrated on vocal music, and with Hugo von Hofmannsthal as librettist, produced brilliantly scored and popular operas, including Salome (1905), Elektra (1909), Der Rosenkavalier (1911), and Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919).