Richard Strauss, (born June 11, 1864, Munich, Ger.—died Sept. 8, 1949, Garmisch-Partenkirchen), German composer and conductor. Son of a horn player, he began composing at age six. Before he was 20, he had already had major premieres of two symphonies and a violin concerto. In 1885 the conductor of the Meiningen Orchestra, Hans von Bülow, made Strauss his successor. Strongly influenced by the work of Richard Wagner, he began to write programmatic orchestral tone poems, including Don Juan (1889), Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks (1894–95), and Also sprach Zarathustra (1896).

After 1900 he focused on operas; his third such work, Salome (1903–05), was a succès de scandale. Elektra (1906–08) marked the beginning of a productive collaboration with the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, with whom Strauss wrote his greatest operas, including Der Rosenkavalier (1909–10).

He remained in Austria through World War II and held a music post in the German government, but he was later cleared of wrongdoing in connection with the Nazi regime. After many years writing lesser works, he produced several remarkable late pieces, including Metamorphosen (1945) and the Four Last Songs (1948).