GG: Barber's adagio, and Strauss

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

Tim Hitchner wrote:

>Barber's "Adagio" is excellent.
>Here is my contribution for relevent music in this time of trial:
>The funeral march from Beethoven's Symphony #3.

There is an excellent CD that includes both Barber's "Adagio" and Richard
Strauss' "Metamorphosen" (plus two works by Elgar)...Smithsonian Chamber
Players conducted by Kenneth Slowik.  I think this is out of print but
copies are still available from Berkshire Record Outlet,
http://www.broinc.com (search for "Slowik").

The booklet notably includes an analysis of "Metamorphosen" showing the
connections between it and the funeral march of Beethoven's "Eroica," plus
the disc has almost 14 minutes of musical examples to go with the essay.

Strauss' sketchbooks for this include two short poems by Goethe
(translated here to English, from the CD booklet):

No one can know himself,
Or detach himself from his inmost being,
Yet every day he puts to the test
Whatever he can objectively consider.
What he is and what he was,
What he can do and what he may.

What goes on in the world
Is really not understood by anyone,
Moreover, up till now
No one has really wanted to understand it.
Keep your wits about you,
And take each day as it comes,
Thinking to yourself, "It's gone all right till now,
So it may well go on until the end."

And, remember, this was one of Glenn Gould's favorite pieces of music.


Bradley Lehman, Dayton VA
home: http://i.am/bpl  or  http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl
CD's: http://listen.to/bpl or http://www.mp3.com/bpl

"Music must cause fire to flare up from the spirit - and not only sparks
from the clavier...." - Alfred Cortot