Description
This title is taken from Dvorak. However. The models from which the songs are derived are clearly identifiable, as are the composers from whose language they have been derived. The piece appears to be in one movement though it is in fact two with a coda. The first is French in style, a sort of Waltz. It is quick and harks upon the likes of Françaix and where its idiom becomes more advanced, Messaien. The other is Germanic, a slow movement with echoes of German expressionism - perhaps Richard Strauss, perhaps Mahler. The two movements are partly complete; the cod reconciles their differences and completes them. I see the piece as my own version of En blanc et noir.