Thanks to Walter Meyer for his extensive quotes from Mann's Doktor Faustus,
a novel that every music lover should get acquainted with. (Although Mann
does irritate me somewhat by giving the impression that, in writing it, he
was feeling sorry for himself as a German more than feeling compassion for
the Nazis' victims.)

The description of Leverkuhn's "Faustus Cantata" that Walter quotes:

>This gigantic *lamento* (lasting approximately an hour and a quarter) is,
>properly speaking, undynamic, lacking development and without drama, in
>much the same way as when a stone is cast into water the concentric circles
>that spread farther and farther, one around the other, are without drama
>and always the same.

also reminds me of Gorecki/s Third. In this case, unlike Britten, mightn't
the composer have gotten some inspiration from Mann?

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]