Elegy for Anne Frank, for orchestra, piano solo & narrator

Consisting of nearly ten minutes of ominous darkness and a few brief passages from Anne Frank's diary, Foss' Elegy is an atmospheric piece rather than a strictly descriptive or programmatic one. Opening with tentative piano passages which seem almost random, the work stretches out for almost eight minutes before the orchestra produces a sinister marching theme and the narrator reads passages from the diary. The passages themselves are optimistic and child-like and the work ends hopefully rather than tragically. Scored for solo piano, full orchestra, and narrator, the Elegy is a late work of a more mellow and less angry and iconoclastic Lukas Foss. In performances, the work is usually conducted by the piano soloist, as this was Foss' own performance practice.

© Michael Morrison, All Music Guide