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- Music Department
- Writer
- Composer
Richard Strauss was a German composer best known for symphonic poem 'Also sprach Zarathustra' (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1896) used as the music score in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) by director Stanley Kubrick.
He was born Richard Georg Strauss on June 11, 1864, in Munich, Bavaria (now Germany). His father, named Franz Strauss, was the principal horn player at the Royal Opera in Munich. Young Strauss was taught music by his father. He wrote his first composition at the age of 6. From the age of 10 he studied music theory and orchestration with an assistant conductor of the Munich Court Orchestra. He was also attending orchestral rehearsals. In 1874 Strauss heard operas by Richard Wagner, but his father did not share his son's interest and forbade him to study Wagner's music until the age of 16.
Strauss studied philosophy and art history at Munich University, then at Berlin University. In 1885 he replaced Hans von Bulow as the principal conductor of the Munich Orchestra. Strauss emerged from under his father's influence when he met Alexander Ritter, a composer, and the husband of one of the nieces of Richard Wagner. He abandoned his father's conservative style and began writing symphonic tone poems. In 1894, Strauss married soprano singer Pauline Maria de Ahna. She was famous for being dominant and ill-tempered, but she was also a source of inspiration to Strauss, resulting in the preferred use of the soprano voice in his compositions.
The image of Richard Strauss and his music was abused by the Nazi propaganda machine, to a point of damaging the composer's posthumous reputation. Richard Strauss was trapped in Nazi Germany just as the Russian intellectuals were under Stalin in the Soviet regime. Strauss' name and music was used by the Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, who appointed Strauss, without his consent, to the State Music Bureau, as a mask on the ugly regime. Strauss was commissioned to write the Olympic Hymn for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. His cautious apolitical position was the only way to survive and to protect his daughter-in-law Alice, who was Jewish.
In 1935 Strauss was fired from his job at the State Music Bureau. He refused to remove from the playbill the name of his friend and opera librettist, the writer Stefan Zweig, who was Jewish. Later Gestapo intercepted a letter from Strauss to Zweig, where Strauss condemned the Nazis. Strauss' daughter-in-law Alice was placed under the house arrest in 1938. In 1942 Strauss managed to move his Jewish relatives to Vienna. There Alice and Strauss's son were later again arrested and imprisoned for two nights. Only Strauss' personal effort saved them. They were returned under house arrest until the end of the Second World War.
Richard Strauss died on September 8, 1949, in Garmish-Partenkirchen, Germany at the age of 85. Strauss' symphonic poem 'Also sprach Zarathustra' (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1896) was recorded under the baton of Herbert von Karajan and was used as the music score in '2001: A Space Odyssey' by director Stanley Kubrik, as well as in many other films.- Monte M. Katterjohn was born on 20 October 1891 in Boonville, Indiana, USA. He was a writer and editor, known for The Flame of the Yukon (1926), Prodigal Daughters (1923) and Paradise Island (1930). He was married to Phyllis Knell. He died on 8 September 1949 in Evansville, Indiana, USA.
- Anton Pointner was born on 8 December 1894 in Salzburg, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was an actor, known for Maria Stuart, Teil 1 und 2 (1927), Das Mädchen mit dem guten Ruf (1938) and Lady Hamilton (1921). He died on 8 September 1949 in Hintersee bei Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, Germany.
- Cinematographer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Actor
John W. Brown was born on 24 June 1882 in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK. He was a cinematographer and assistant director, known for The Quest (1915), Society Snobs (1921) and Mind the Paint Girl (1919). He died on 8 September 1949 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
William H. Tuers was born on 21 August 1884 in New York, USA. He was a cinematographer, known for Racing Romance (1926), The Scorcher (1927) and The Night Owl (1926). He died on 8 September 1949 in Hollywood, California, USA.