The Richard Strauss work here titled The Happy Workshop had various titles; on Strauss' title page, it was the Sonatina No. 2 in E flat major, but it later appeared as the Symphony for Winds ("Die fröliche Werkstatt," or "The Happy Workshop"). It's not clear where the ineffably charming subtitle came from; it would be odd for a publisher to have come up with it. It has been suggested that it was Strauss' own and that he was referring to Friedrich Nietzsche's Die fröliche Wissenschaft ("The Joyful Science"). Whatever the ...
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The Richard Strauss work here titled The Happy Workshop had various titles; on Strauss' title page, it was the Sonatina No. 2 in E flat major, but it later appeared as the Symphony for Winds ("Die fröliche Werkstatt," or "The Happy Workshop"). It's not clear where the ineffably charming subtitle came from; it would be odd for a publisher to have come up with it. It has been suggested that it was Strauss' own and that he was referring to Friedrich Nietzsche's Die fröliche Wissenschaft ("The Joyful Science"). Whatever the case, weighing in at 40 minutes plus in length, it is no sonatina, and it is indeed joyous. Its finale has the spirit of transcendence found in Strauss' very last works. This may seem mysterious in view of the fact that Strauss wrote it toward the end of World War II, in deep depression about the destruction of the Munich Court Theatre by Allied bombing, but there is perhaps no contradiction. It is an intricate work full of difficult writing for the winds, and part of the appeal...
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