Strauss engaged in close friendships only with two people over a long time: Ludwig Thuille and Friedrich Rösch. Even with Hofmannsthal there was an artistic collaboration but never a true friendship. Thuille influenced the young Strauss as a composer of instrumental music and a professor of counterpoint and harmony, and he encouraged Strauss on his way to the modern tone poem and opera. Rösch impressed Strauss as a musician and conductor, as an expert in the philosophy of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and as a legal expert. Strauss also prized Rösch’s analytical and value judgments. In the beginnings of the General German Music Society and the Institution for Musical Performing Rights Strauss was the frontman but Rösch the worker.