Pieces with a Farewell theme?

[Despina41]

Hi everyone,

I have a friend putting together a radio show and she wants to do farewell-themed pieces - or pieces that have some historical circumstance relating to goodbyes. I vetoed the Haydn symphony (works as a visual gag better), and recommended Schwanengesang and Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen.


The catch of the show is it's supposed to avoid standard rep, so early music and 20th/21st-century peeps, please contribute!

[Philidor]

Any good?

Le tombeau de Couperin is a suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917, in six movements. Each movement is dedicated to the memory of friends of the composer who had died fighting in World War I. Ravel himself was an army driver during the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_tombeau_de_Couperin

I. Prélude
"To the memory of Lieutenant Jacques Charlot" (who transcribed Ravel's four-hand piece Ma mère l'oye for solo piano)

II. Fugue
"To the memory of Jean Cruppi" (to whose mother Ravel dedicated his opera L'heure espagnole)

III. Forlane
"To the memory of Lieutenant Gabriel Deluc" (a Basque painter from Saint-Jean-de-Luz)

IV. Rigaudon
"To the memory of Pierre and Pascal Gaudin" (brothers killed by the same shell)

V. Menuet
"To the memory of Jean Dreyfus" (at whose home Ravel recuperated after he was demobilized)

VI. Toccata
"To the memory of Captain Joseph de Marliave"[1] (killed in action in August 1914)

[Despina41]

Too much a standard rep piece.

[ReinerTorheit]

A lot of farewell music is - by definition - quite sad, and much of it is funereal too - you probably don't want too much of that, I guess?

Although if you don't mind a bit of funeral music, then the Beethoven 'Equali' (for three trombones), Grieg's "Funeral Music for Nordraak", and Purcell's Funeral Music for Queen Mary are three of my personal favourites.

Cheerful farewells - Peter Cook & Dudley Moore singing "Goodbye, Goodbye, We're Leaving You, Goodbye" - the signout music from their 1960s tv show?

Optimistic farewell music - Mozart's concert aria "Chi'o mi scordi di te", written for the farewell of his favourite diva (and lover, we wonder?) from Vienna, Anna "Nancy" Storace... who had created the role of Susanna in the premiere of FIGARO. La Storace had been the Emperor's mistress, but she appears to have been unfaithful to him, and was dismissed in great haste and anger from the Imperial Court Opera. Mozart hurried to write this delightful aria "per la Signora Storace e me" - it has an obligato piano part to it, which the composer played.

But what do we make of the text of the final section: "Wherever Fate may take you, I shall be always with you, always with you, always with you my love, always with you..."

At the Inquest which followed Anna Storace's death in London nearly half a century later (she lived to be a cantankerous and half-deaf old lady) her housemaid gave testimony. She said that the week before the diva's death, two men had come from Vienna - they wanted to purchase the singer's letters from Mozart. (Clearly they were working for Von Nissen, who published the first Mozart biography, and had married Mozart's widow - he was trying to remove all possibly compromising material from circulation). "The mistress threw the gentlemen out in a passion, saying that they should never have the letters, for any sum. She told them to go to a place which was not Vienna. And then she slammed the door on them. The same night she burned the letters, and did not sleep until five in the morning".

Now that's what I *call* a farewell )

Oh, and one more, but it's very bleak indeed... the end of THE EMPEROR OF ATLANTIS, in which the population go to their deaths, saying they are very sorry for being naughty and will never be rude to Death again The words are "O Death, come now into our hearts", sung to the words of the Chorale "O Christ, come now into our hearts". Sick stuff indeed

[Herzeleide]

Originally Posted by Despina41

The catch of the show is it's supposed to avoid standard rep, so early music and 20th/21st-century peeps, please contribute!

Any movement of Grisey's Quarte chants pour franchir le seuil, or the last movement of Boulez's Pli selon Pli, Tombeau, which is epic, grand and awesome.

A movement from Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps, maybe, but perhaps that's too standard-reppy.