This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is Richard Strauss's "Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks." Composed in 1894–95, Till Eulenspiegel is one of Richard Strauss’s most exuberant and entertaining orchestral works.

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) was a German composer and conductor whose work spanned late Romanticism and early modernism. He is best known for tone poems, operas and lieder. Wagner's influence pervades Strauss's music, from the great man's rich orchestration to his leitmotivic technique.

Till Eulenspiegel was inspired German folk hero Till Eulenspiegel, a folk trickster figure who mocks authority, tricks peasants and townsfolk and eventually comes to a bad end. Tales of his exploits first circulated in northern Germany and the Low Countries in the late Middle Ages. In most versions of Till's tale, he ends up on the gallows, underscoring that mockery of authority has limits.

For centuries, Till symbolized the irreverent popular voice against the ruling classes and clerical power. In the 19th century, during the heyday of German Romantic nationalism, he was rediscovered as an embodiment of the Volksgeist (spirit of the people), a “German” folk anti-hero. During the 19th century, there was strong interest in German folklore and tales. The Brothers Grimm famously collected and published folktales.

Strauss always had an eye for vivid personalities. He loved operatic drama of course; however, his tone poems often depicted heroes (Don Juan, Ein Heldenleben) or “anti-heroes” (Don Quixote). Composing a tone poem about Till Eulenspiegel connected Strauss to German cultural heritage in a playful rather than monumental way. Strauss himself remarked that he wanted to show that humor could also be expressed in orchestral music.

In the early 1890s, Strauss had considered writing an opera on Till. He abandoned the idea, deciding that the episodic nature of the tales and the outrageous mischievousness of the character would work better in instrumental sketches than in sung drama.

Till Eulenspiegel opens with a gentle horn phrase that sets a “storytelling” atmosphere. Till’s theme is expressed through a witty, lilting clarinet figure, evoking Till’s personality. Strauss's music in the piece depicts a series of adventures: Till causing chaos in a market square; Till mocking academics (there's a passage of pompous “scholarly” music); and Till disguising himself as a priest (there's a parody of church music). Later in the piece, the mood darkens. After Till’s tricks catch up with him, the clarinet theme appears in distorted form as he is caught, sentenced and executed. The execution is depicted with a chilling orchestral stroke. There is a coda: The gentle opening returns, as if the tale has ended but Till’s spirit lives on.

When Till premiered in 1895, many critics were shocked by its humor and grotesquerie — orchestral music was not supposed to be so cheeky. But audiences loved it, and it quickly became one of Strauss’s most popular works. It stood out because most tone poems of the time dealt with serious subjects. Strauss proved a symphonic poem could be comic, satirical and playful.

Strauss, in the 1890s, was experimenting with tone poems as musical narratives. Choosing Till allowed him to combine German folklore, humor, orchestral brilliance, and character portraiture. It was a “musical comedy without words” — unique in the symphonic repertoire of the time.

"Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks" is a brilliant orchestral tale of a folk trickster that showcased Richard Strauss's genius for musical storytelling.

In this performance from 2007, Semyon Bychkov conducts the WDR Symphony Orchestra in the Cologne Philharmonie.