Max Reger - Four Tone Poems after Arnold Böcklin’s pictures, Op. 128

Max Reger - 4 Tone Poems after Arnold Böcklin’s pictures for orchestra, Op. 128, 1913. Reger was inspired by the painter Arnold Böcklin, a painter whose favorite subjects were the fantastic and the morbid. These tone paintings range from the moody and mysterious to the carefree. The present suite is a programmatic representation of four paintings by the Swiss symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901). Here, the composer chose images of alternatingly contrasting moods (yearning - playful - meditative - festive) as inspirations for each respective movement. Reger’s short tone poems correspond to four Böcklin canvases: I. Der geigende Eremit (Hermit Playing the Violin): Molto sostenuto The tone of Hermit Fiddler is one of quiet longing. In Böcklin’s work, an old monk performs alone at a shrine of the Madonna while curious cherubim listen. Reger’s hermit - solo violin - voices a reverent melody that is answered by the woodwinds and carried over richly sonorou