What is noble, lyrical, tender in the upper level shown is also with the servants, scoundrels, and scamps, as in a distorting mirror. This contrast seems to me a most appealing musical theme--to show love in its noble and crude forms, romanticism and crass realism mixed as in everyday life.

A Confidential Matter: The Letters of Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig, 1931-1935 (ed. Univ of California Press, 1977) - ISBN: 9780520030367