This work was written in 1945, when Perlea was imprisoned by the Germans, along with other Romanians, in a camp in Austria. Theodor Grigoriu points out its "autobiographical notes and a self-irony, which would have meant that all the ideals of [Perlea's] life until then had been nothing but chimerical windmills". I know no other piece of music with a similar dramaturgy: Of course there are works with stunning manoeuvres of calming down, standing still, ending morendo and the like; but here is a symphonic poem that halfway comes to a halt and just keeps stopping - not as an accident, but very decisively so. And it calms down, and it goes on and on, even more calming down. Morendo deciso.
Don Quichotte. Poem simfonic (1945)
Orchestra Naţională Radio (Bucharest National Radio Symphony Orchestra), conducted by Paul Popescu
recorded in 1998
image: Salvador Dalí, Don Quichotte (1959 - Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria)
