Richard Strauss and Hedonism

What Fritz Busch said of Strauss is most apt. There is a cheerful hedonism about the man, an invincible materialism. A will to discovery, unabashed curiosity, all texture and sensuousness, totally amoral, totally satiating.

Strauss is no Mahler.

What can be said of the music has also been said of the man. Strauss was amoral, apolitical, materialistic; all he wanted was that the Nazis leave him alone to make his art and his money.