#Gallant knights insane series

I'm tempted to go into the philosophical meanings behind all this - there are many - it's all so relevant to us today with our peculiar 20th century brand of madness - but if I do we'll never get to the music.Īh, the music! What makes Strauss' Don Quixote so remarkable is the way he has succeeded in catching the literary and pictorial elements of the novel in all their wit and variety.

#Gallant knights insane series

They have a long series of fantastic adventures, at the end of which Quixote finally realizes his folly and goes home to die peacefully in bed. Don's knightly exploits - that's knightly with a K - as he and his fat faithful little squire, whose name is Sancho Panza, roam about rooting out evil for the sake of the lovely Dulcinea. In short, the whole long novel is a hilarious account of the poor old. The old Don has been reading every word he can find on the subject - book after book - until his poor old head is so crammed with giants, ogres, enemies, infidels, evil magicians and the like that he is impelled to set forth on his skinny old nag Rosinante, suffocating in his heavy, rusty armor, and put all evil to the sword - all, of course, in the name of his fair beloved, Dulcinea, whom, needless to say, he has completely made up. It concerns an aged gentleman named Don Quixote (or Don Quixote, as the British like to say, or Don Quichotte, as the French and Germans say) - anyway, Don Quixote, an aged gentleman of La Mancha (plug!) who in his declining years has become obsessed by the idea of chivalry - that is, gallant knights on horseback sort of thing, roaming the world searching out evil and finding causes to champion, especially the cause of purity, for example, find the pure, ideal woman.

That marvelous Spanish novel by Cervantes is, of course, one of the all-time classics, about three and-a-half centuries old but as I say, very up to date. Besides, it's a masterpiece, and you ought to know it anyway - it's one of the big ones, like the novel by Cervantes on which it is based - funny, wise, romantically warm, and philosophically cool. On that program, the main event was the fabulous tone-poem Don Quixote by Richard Strauss, and I would like to indulge my nostalgic mood today by playing it again, and sharing it with you. I can't help looking back to the beginning of my relationship with this great orchestra, twenty-five years ago, heavens, when I was its assistant conductor, and made my debut unexpectedly, by replacing Bruno Writer who had caught the flu. My dear young friends: This is going to be my last Season as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic and naturally I'm already feeling a little bit nostalgic. Original CBS Television Network Broadcast Date: 25 December 1968