Straightening Out Joseph

Two years ago, Richard Strauss wrote to his friend, Conductor Max Reiter in San Antonio, that he was dedicating his last years (he is now 84) to "straightening out my house," reworking old compositions that had never satisfied him.

He mentioned his ballet The Legend of Joseph, which Impresario Sergei Diaghilev had first produced in Paris and London in 1914. Joseph meant something special to Max Reiter: as a young man he had played the celesta in the Berlin Opera orchestra while Strauss himself conducted it. Reiter demanded the honor of being the first to perform the new version when it was ready.

Last week, Strauss's new Joseph was ready, and Max Reiter's well-drilled San Antonio Symphony Orchestra was ready to play it. Composer Strauss had done more than strain off a potpourri of the original music; he had taken six or seven of his best themes, added some new material, then stirred and blended it all into a symphonic piece, in the tradition of his great Death and Transfiguration (1889). Said Conductor Reiter: "Strauss's music craft is as perfect as ever."

At week's end, when San Antonio concertgoers got to hear Joseph, most agreed. First they heard broad phrases in full orchestra, then passages, with the simple serenity of Mozart, depicting the character of Joseph. Later, in the temptation by Potiphar's wife, the music became sensuously dissonant, almost Oriental, reminding some listeners of Salome.

When it was over, San Antonians gave Joseph and Max Reiter their hearty approval. In appreciation of the man who had founded their orchestra (TIME, July 14, 1947) and nursed its musicians on Strauss, they had also given Max Reiter a new five-year contract.

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