11/6/2023 0 Comments Diagram of autumnal equinoxThe nostalgia for fin-su-siècle Vienna in “Der Rosenkavalier” takes on added context when you consider that World War I broke out three years after the work’s premiere. One of Strauss’s greatest talents as a composer was composing music for fading empires: “Salome” is as much about the tenuousness of Herod’s political power as it is about the beheading of John the Baptist. Danish String Quartet: “Tjønneblomen” (2017) Or, as Nate Chinen wrote of pianist Keith Jarrett’s retirement from music in 2020 (following a pair of strokes in 2018), Bartók is coming “to terms with his body of work as a settled fact.” This added poignancy comes to the surface in Jarrett’s galvanizing recording of the Third Concerto, recorded live in Tokyo in 1985 and released 30 years later on ECM. Bartók’s musical influences make a similar journey. Bruegel was showing the return of cattle from Alpine pastures to peasant farms in preparation for winter. The overall effect feels on par with Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s depiction of autumn in “The Return of the Herd,” both in terms of the tonal colors throughout the score and in the sense of homecoming. There are other classic Bartókisms, including birdsong, night music, and quotes from Beethoven’s late string quartets and Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.” The opening movement flutters in like a breeze, the piano capturing and diffusing sunlight in the main melody (which borrows from the composer’s beloved Hungarian folk dances). Famously, he intended this particular piece as a surprise birthday gift for his wife, pianist Ditta Pásztory, with the idea that she could use the work to further her career following his death. In his final year, Bartók began working on his Third Piano Concerto, one of the many works that came in the wake of his declining health and fatal prognosis. In 1943, settled in New York, the composer wrote to his publisher at Boosey & Hawkes: “I can hardly play the piano, there is a pain in my right shoulder.” One year later, his leukemia would be diagnosed in its late stage. said the early symptoms of his father’s leukemia became unavoidable. Bartók first encountered the autumn of his life during his final years in Hungary.
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