Richard Strauss lived for two of the most fascinating periods of modern German history; he saw how an empire appeared and disappeared, survived two world wars, testified to the birth and fall of the Weimar Republic, endured National Socialism and died the year that Germany was officially divided into two independent states. And while all this was happening, he enjoyed enormous success in his professional career as a composer, as an international level conductor, as organizer of the composers' copyright and as a colleague and collaborator of some of the most important composers, writers and artists of his time.