Today is the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe.
Poe’s classic story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” has particular resonance in this time of COVID, with the seemingly blithe indifference of a decadent ruler to the sufferings of his people. Instead, Prince Prospero invites those loyal to him to party on the brink of disaster, with inevitably horrifying consequences. The hour of reckoning arrives as the ebony clock strikes twelve.
The story, first published in 1842, has inspired a number of pieces of music over the years, but this one is new to me. Christopher Rouse was composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic when he wrote “Prospero’s Rooms” in 2011. Rouse was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Trombone Concerto in 1993. He died in 2015 at the age of 70.
Rouse talks about the story and his music:
My favorite setting of the piece is still the “Conte fantastique” (“Fantastic Tale”) by Debussy associate André Caplet:
Raise a glass of amontillado to Edgar Allan Poe.