Contributions of Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar to Music
Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar made valuable but uncelebrated contributions to Western classical music, including paying for the premiere of ‘Four Last Songs’. The year was 1948. Europe was limping back to normalcy after seven terrible years of a world war. Richard Strauss had managed to escape his shattered homeland in the last year of the war and had settled in neutral Switzerland. It was here that the ailing 84-year-old composer wrote his farewell to the world through Four Last Songs , which included Frühling (Spring), September , Beim Schlafengehen (When Falling Asleep) and the haunting Im Abendrot (At Sunset). He was never to hear them performed, but he expressed the desire to have them sung by the reigning Wagnerian soprano, Kirsten Flagstad, writing to her in 1949: “…I have the pleasure to provide to you my Four Last Songs with orchestra, which are currently in print in London; to give their premier performance in an orchestral concert w...