Today, we also wish to celebrate World Book Day and pay tribute to Cervantes, who in his own book, “Don Quixote,” captured this wonderful phrase: “Where there is music, there can be no evil.”.
Many composers have drawn inspiration from the distinctive character created by Cervantes. At the Reina Sofía School, for example, we have heard an aria from Massenet’s opera “Don Quixote,” the Don Quixote Songs by Ibert and Ravel, Telemann’s string suite “Quixote Burlesque,” the 3 Epitaphs for choir with text by Cervantes composed by Rodolfo Halffter, and Richard Strauss’s symphonic poem Don Quixote (Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character), in which the cello represents Don Quixote. Here you can listen to the final movement, which depicts “The Return to Reason, the Death of Don Quixote”.
STRAUSS, Richard
Don Quixote (Don Quijote) for cello and orchestra TrV 184 op. 35 “Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character” (reduction for cello and piano)
XII. Finale. Very calm
Francesco Stefanelli, cello
Miguel Ángel Ortega Chavaldas, piano
