November / Month of the Sonata – 11

Astonishment, 1919 - Alexej von Jawlensky

    “Astonishment (1919) 

 

      Alexej von Jawlensky

 

             ​​​​​​​​​___________

 

 

today is Remembrance Day, at least in the 

West, my father was in the war, the Second

World War, survived, manifestly, I was born 

in ’49

 

my sister, who died a few years ago, said,

during her long, painful ordeal, that if  

soldiers could endure on the battlefield,

she could do the same, and never 

complained

 

these are my remembrances

 

here’s, meanwhile, Sergei Prokofiev’s 

middle of three war sonatas he composed, 

his Seventh, the “Stalingrad”, 1942 

if to be represented in art history, I’d 

associate it with Expressionism, see

above, abiding, essentially, within 

each their particular artistic 

conventions, in music, tonality, 

tempo and repetition, in art, colour, 

perspective, form, though wreaking 

havoc, each, within, either, their 

assigned parameters

 

listen, be inspired

 

 

in commemoration, and wonder

 

R ! chard