Word: balmont
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Russian, Rachmaninoff had been fascinated by the weird poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Before the War he determined to work into a symphony Poe's tinkling sleigh bells, golden marriage bells, frightened alarm bells and bitter, iron-tongued dirge bells. As text he used Russian Poet Constantin Balmont's version of Poe's second most famous poem, completed the work...
...text that last week's audience heard was neither Poe's nor Balmont's. It was Fanny S. Copeland's English translation of a German translation of Balmont's Russian translation. Though the poem had grown worse in its travels, nobody seemed to care. The audience was thrilled by Rachmaninoff's ingenious sonorities, by the whispering pianissimi and loud thundering of the University of Pennsylvania chorus, by the shivering of parallel fifths in the high winds. Critics found The Bells an effective piece of scoring, mourned its unevenness. The audience was less reserved, applauded...