Huckleberry Finn Suite - M1188.05 | Music

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."
(Ernest Hemingway)

Even if not everybody agrees with Ernest Hemingway's unconditional admiration for Mark Twain's novel, few dare to challenge the fact that "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", with its linguistic revolution as well as its attack at the heart of the power of literature, is the most meaningful novel of America's 19th century. Published in 1884, the novel provoked the indignation and the rage of conventional thinkers: vulgar, rough, irreverent, harsh, plain, semi-obscene, are just a few of the adjectives used by critics. Although the book is among the funniest ever written - a real "breathtaking novel" - the main effect it has on the reader is of intense emotion and deep longing.
Written eight years after "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) Huckleberry Finn differs from the former by its pronounced irony as well as a touch of cynicism that distinguishes situations and characters. The Story is told by Huckleberry in the first person, with a polished language colored by inaccurate syntax, typical of dialect. Some scenes from the novel take musical shape in the four movements that form Huckleberry Finn Suite (A Lazy Town, Jim, The King and the Duke, Huckleberry's Rug).
Like Mark Twain's meticulous care in searching for hidden inflexions in dialect, Franco Cesarini has carried out a the huge collection of music from the period at the Duke University of Durham, North Carolina (USA).