Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), City Apartment House, 1925; ink and conté crayon on paper, 11 1/4 x 8 inches (Frame: 21 1/4 x 17 1/4 inches); Burchfield Penney Art Center, Gift of Charles Rand Penney, 1994
Played [Tchaikovsky]'s 5th Symph. 1st movement - a sullen summary of world misery ending in a sinking despair that goes down in to the earth– 2ndmovement – commiseration for human sorrow - it brought back to me, the Saturdays & Sundays at the Harbor when we lived at 459 Franklin- of the harsh wild life there, and of our life in the 3rd floor apartment – of the sandwiches Bertha used to fix for my sketching traps –
3rd movement – never went deep for me except at the end –
4th movement – a momentous feat of transfiguration of a motive – with echoes of the sullenness of the 1st movement – the sudden brassy assertion of the triumphal motive is always thrilling & new to me – a grandeur that is one of the great moments in music for me –
Charles E. Burchfield, January 6, 1936