Richibi’s Weblog

     “Sketch made from travels in Italy and Switzerland“ (1906)

             Nicholas Roerich 

                  __________

a suite by any other name is still 

a suite, a piece of music with  

several related parts, a collage, 

in painterly parlance 

one New Year’s Eve, rather than 

going out to celebrate, I took a

hot bath, rose at midnight like 

Venus from the cleansing waters, 

sat with my teddy bear before a 

bristling fireplace, and listened,

serene, to Liszt’s “Années de

Pèlerinage”, all three of his

magical compositions around 

his time in Switzerland and Italy,

rendered as musical photographs, 

they are of Liszt, I think, his 

summit, his acme, the rest of his 

stuff is mostly show business

here’s his “Première année:

Suisse“, to my mind, a marvel 

        l – Chapelle de Guillaume Tell

       ll – Au lac de Wallenstadt

      lll – Pastorale

      lV – Au bord d’une source, or, By a Spring

       V – Orage – Storm

      Vl – Vallée d’Obermann

     Vll – Églogue

    Vlll – Le mal du pays (Heimweh) – Homesickness

      lX – Les cloches de Genève (Nocturne) – The Bells of Geneva

R ! chard