Richard Strauss's works are staples of both concert hall and opera house, and yet relatively little is known or discussed of the man himself. What we do know about Strauss - that he was incredibly astute financially, that his relationship with the Nazis was "complicated", and that his wife Pauline was as assertive and domineering as his mother was not - is a roughly-drawn portrait of the man which was propagated by almost all his contemporaries, and indeed by Strauss himself. A man who strove to control almost obsessively what was known about him, what cliches there are have largely succeeded in deterring scholars from taking more than a passing interest in this most complex of characters.
Drawing extensively on brand new research, Tom Service travels to Switzerland - where Strauss lived from October 1945 for almost four years - in search of the real Richard Strauss, and in the process sheds fascinating new light on some of the composer's later music in particular.