Romantic India

[Klaus Karttunen]

Dear colleagues

reminded of our discussion about Indian inspiration in Western music,
I find it somewhat embarrassing to have to confess, that I recently
found some additional information in my own bookshelf. The book India
and Italy, edited by R.M.Cimino and F. Scialpi (Rome 1974), has a
small chapter (p. 180-182) on this theme. Here we learn that F.
Alfano (1876-1954) published also a revised version of his ZakuntalA
in 1944/45. Illustration 77 of the book gives the first page of
Alfano's manuscript, "lento e misterioso". Several Italian composers,
such as Alfano, Alfredo Casella, Ottorino Respighi et al. also
used Tagore's poems to compose songs.

Regards

Klaus