I've always enjoyed Strauss for one of the reasons that others dislike him: his ability with "program music."
He could capture and portray sound images of visual scenes. Of course, a fine example of this is the Alpine Symphony, in which he takes us along on a climb up the Alps. We hear streams, storms, a blazing sunrise in which you can almost feel the radiant warmth.
In a similar fashion, Mahler captured feelings. Consider the nostalgia of the Posthorn Serenade from M3 or the yearning in M5's Adagietto. That's why I always mention Mahler's almost shock at what inspired Strauss--when Strauss would reply to the effect that he didn't need inspiration; he was just very good at writing music. Where Mahler was trying to come to terms with the meaning of life and death, Strauss at least claimed that he simply set out to write a piece of music.
I share Mahler's disbelief when I hear some of the exquisite themes in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, for example. The simple chorus "Tone, Tone, Susse Stimmen" (Sounds, sweet voices) intoned by the Ariadne Muses sounds like Strauss joining with Mahler in an admiration of how musical sounds and words can bewitch us, as Strauss puts it. But of course that is just me--it's all subjective. They're just musical notes. (That's what Strauss and I tell ourselves.)
Der Rosenkavalier also has some deliciously "dripping with syrup" themes and others that are ethereal. In the "presentation of the rose" scene, the singers describe it as beauty "almost too strong to be endured."
If you can't imagine enjoying opera, I still hope someday you might give it a chance. Mahler earned his living doing a better job of conducting opera than anyone previously. He strove to bring out the best of what he thought the composer intended, and I think he may have even improved on what they had done.
