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Richard Strauss: Autographen, Portrats, Buhnenbilder. Ausstellung zum 50. Todestag.

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Richard Strauss: Autographen, Portrats, Buhnenbilder. Ausstellung zum 50. Todestag. Edited by Hartmut Schaefer. In Zusammenarbeit mit: Richard-Strauss-Archiv, Garmisch; Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, Universitat zu Koln; Deutsches Theatermuseum, Munchen. Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 1999. [336 p. ISBN 3-9802700-4-1. [euro]34.] Illustrations, color plates, bibliography, index.

In the five years that it has taken for this marvelous catalog prepared for the fiftieth anniversary of Richard Strauss's death to reach North American shores, we have arrived at the 140th anniversary of his birth. The exhibition of Strauss holographs (manuscripts, letters), portraits, production materials, and other primary sources documented in this catalog opened at the Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek on 8 September 1999, fifty years to the day after his death. The Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek has long been a collector of Straussiana and currently holds sixty-four music autographs, around two thousand autograph letters and other documents, and many first-edition prints of Strauss's works. For this exhibition, its own collection was augmented by materials loaned by the Richard-Strauss-Archiv in Garmisch. Understandably, there is a certain Munich-centeredness to the catalog, with an essay on the premieres and first performances of Strauss's operas in Munich and documentation of Strauss's concerts in the city between 1894 and 1932, not to mention that section of the exhibition itself devoted to his two periods as a conductor...