Gurrelieder

2004. Watercolour on paper. 23x30in. 58.5x76cm.

The remote castle of Gurre (not far from Elsinore, scene of Shakespeare’s Hamlet). One of a series of paintings and prints associated with the massive oratorio/cantata the Gurre-Lieder composed by Arnold Schoenberg between 1900 and 1911. The poem texts are by the Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen.

Robert Markow describes the motifs of the opening orchestral prelude:

…Flickering Light, Sunset, Longing and Deepening Stillness

See also the Fifty Etchings 2005.