Middle period. From the devil’s pact to the outbreak of tertiary syphilis (1906–1918)
Characterized by a predilection for vocal music and the embrace of early modern musical forms.
“I discovered that he was increasingly preoccupied with an interest in music wedded to word, with its vocal articulation” (172/235).
“And now before my eyes the dramatic form was being superseded by the epic, music drama being transformed into oratorio, opera drama into opera cantata […]—out of an attitude, I mean, which, being no longer interested in things psychological, insisted on being objective, on a language that expressed something absolute, binding, and obligatory, and that therefore preferred to put on the gentle chains of pre-classical strict forms” (391/539–40).
Songs on Mediterranean themes (XX) | |
Songs on poems by Verlaine and Blake (XX) | |
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“Concerto” for string orchestra (XXI) | |
Quartet for flute, clarinet, corno di bassetto, and bassoon (XXI) | |
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Love’s Labour’s Lost (opera) (XXIV) | |
Songs on poems by Keats and Klopstock (XXVII) | |
Marvels of the Universe (orchestral fantasy; also referred to by Zeitblom as Cosmic Symphony) (XXVII) | |
Gesta Romanorum (puppet opera) (XXX) | |
Apocalipsis cum figuris (oratorio, also referred to by Zeitblom as The Revelation of St. John) (XXXIV) | |