The greatest and most popular German composer of the twentieth century, Richard Strauss (1864 -- 1949) remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of music. Though he is now accepted as one of the finest of all orchestral composers, and his operas are the most subtly characterized since Mozart's, his reputation remains dogged by charges of sensationalism, careerist opportunism and Nazi collaboration. This powerful study places Strauss's life in the context of German history, reveals the paradoxes that lay beneath his flamboyant public persona and discusses his work in the light of the influences -- personal, artistic, literary and political -- that shaped it.