German-Swiss writer Herman Hesse is beloved the world over for his wide body of work expressing a unique vision of the human experience. a vision that is in many ways a dance of apparent contraries—the sensual and the spiritual, the East and West (to name but two)—that are actually both part of a single seamless whole. For this singular vision, as expressed in such works Siddhartha, Demian, Steppenwolf, The Glass Bead Game (again, to name a few), he would eventually be awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature. The sense and spirit of music permeates his luminous writing, and his writings have inspired a number of composers—most famously, Richard Strauss (three of whose magnificent Four Last Songs were on poems of Hesse). We'll hear those (performed by the great Jessye Norman) along with some settings of Hesse poems made by the Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck, which were favored, and beautifully performed, by the legendary Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
You can hear Foley Schuler's musical selections—and stories behind the music—every weekday afternoon from 1 until 5.
