Richard Strauss's Orchestral Music and the German Intellectual TraditionThe young Richard Strauss was almost exclusively an orchestral composer. Yet, the year 1903 brought a significant break from orchestral writing, and Strauss then shifted his focus to opera for the next four decades. In the aftermath of the Second World War he returned to orchestral music, having first served and then been summarily dismissed by the Third Reich. Despite its enduring appeal among concert audiences, and the intriguing pattern of his