Karl Weigl

solo piano

Toteninsel is one of Weigl's earliest completed works and the only art-inspired work in his oeuvre. Weigl was by no means alone in falling under the spell of the Swiss artist Arnold Bocklin, who, by the turn of the nineteenth century, was one of the best-known representatives of German symbolism. Bocklin's five versions of the painting Die Toteninsel, which inspired Weigl, depicted the mythological Charon ferrying a sould across the rivers Styx and Acheron to a craggy island densely covered with gloomy Italian cypresses. On the original score, Weigl added another dimension by quoting several non-contiguous lines from Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra.

This work, originally from 1903 is now available in a new engaved edition from American Composers Alliance.