Richard Strauss’s Salome is one of the most significant operas of the twentieth century. The work, together with Elektra, Op. 58, represents Strauss’s furthest reaches into a modernist musical aesthetic influenced by the evolution of European art at the turn of the century. At this time the Industrial Revolution, along with the growing prominence of the work of neurologist Sigmund Freud, led to increased exploration of psychological themes in art. For the first time, artists demonstrated rapt interest not only in telling distinctly human stories, but also in exploring the subtle, deep-seated motivations and nuance behind characters’ actions. Along with this transformation of source material came new musical aesthetics. Salome in particular can be thought of as a bridge between Romanticism and Expressionism. Romanticism, in musical terms, marked an era of lush orchestration, arching melodies, and increased emotional weight and expression through the use of more colorful harmonies. Expressionism, the movement that followed, was heavily influenced by public interest in psychoanalysis and the changing social values of an industrialized society. It is marked by angular, choppy melodies and dissonant harmonies (chords that sound as if they “conflict” with each other). Strauss’s “meeting in the middle” between these two movements yields an incredibly decadent and varied score, with brilliantly inventive harmonies that take listeners to the edge of conventional tonality. This decadence of orchestration lends itself perfectly to the aesthetic of Oscar Wilde, whose play Salomé (translated into German by Hedwig Lachmann) serves as the source material for Strauss’s text.
While it is useful to contextualize Salome in the newly-industrialized European landscape and note its proximity to Expressionism, it is equally important to understand the origins of its historical influences, namely those of Richard Wagner. Wagner was one of the most important opera composers in history due to his invention of several key musical aesthetic principles, among them a more colorful, expressive harmonic language that paved the way for “modern” composition, and the use of leitmotifs, or brief musical passages used to describe a particular character or situation. In a Wagner opera, the orchestra itself serves as a character due to how often the musical themes it plays directly represent a person or event in the story. In composing Salome, Strauss also relies heavily on leitmotifs. These short phrases are composed with the representative character’s personality in mind, often evoking a specific mood used to drive the plot forward. In his book Rounding Wagner’s Mountain, Bryan Gilliam writes “There is no doubt that Salome captured the composer’s imagination more completely than any other person in the opera. He lavished more themes upon her than any other character by far: as a virgin, a spoiled princess, a seductress, a sexually hungry being, and a seething victim of incest.” In analyzing this plurality of motives, we come to reconcile the historical aspect of Wagner’s influence and Strauss’s “modernist” need to paint a gripping psychological portrait of the title character. Rather than using each motive to simply “describe” her, he takes the opportunity to craft themes that say something about her on a deeply human level.
In discussing the musical nature of the themes, in particular those that represent Salome and John the Baptist, we are able to open up a dialogue about the influence of Freud and industrialized Europe on the depiction of women in art. Oscar Wilde, in writing the source material, was no doubt influenced by the popular early twentieth century trope of the “femme fatale.” At that time in Europe there was great concern surrounding how the Industrial Revolution would change the societal role of women. Male artists, fearing liberationist sentiment arising in women as a by-product of modernization, depicted the “modern woman” as licentious, unrestrained, hysterical, and sexually promiscuous. The end goal was, of course, to exaggerate the “faults” of modernity so that women would avoid any temperament or behavior that would associate them with the caricature of a “femme fatale.” Freud’s role in the creation of this trope is the result of many of his hypotheses about the correspondence between sexual development, desire, and the quality of interpersonal relationships. He also famously conflated increased sexual desire in women with mental illness, particularly hysteria. The influence of these concepts is not lost on Strauss’s score. The opera opens with a wheedling clarinet theme intended to represent Salome. It starts with a clever run upward that gives way to a brief arching, leaping melody at once evoking seduction, slyness, and artificial innocence. From the outset we are able to hear what Strauss imagines to be the landscape of Salome’s inner thoughts. This theme is altered slightly throughout the opera, with prominent, noticeably “sleazed-up” appearances recurring in the Dance of the Seven Veils as oboe and flute solos. Compare this to the slow, solemn, infinitely more linear theme in the brass used to represent John the Baptist, and it’s impossible to ignore the influence of early twentieth-century gender politics on the score.
Today, Salome serves as an intensely interesting case study for music theorists and others who study the language of music. At the end of the opera, after Salome has proclaimed her love for (and kissed) the severed head of John the Baptist, there is a thunderously dissonant chord which almost resembles a “cluster” (a theory term denoting a chord where all the notes sound extremely close together). It is not a coincidence that the most jarring harmonic moment in the opera happens in the tragic final scene. Strauss uses this moment of compositional modernity to convey the unsustainable and collapsing nature of the opera’s plot. By upending the listener’s expectation, he “mutilates” an otherwise familiar chord to great effect, fully integrating compositional innovation, psychosexual excess, and Oscar Wilde’s penchant for decadence.