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TEMPEST PS

The cover of Bob Dylan's forthcoming album Tempest shows part of one of four main figures from the sculpture the Athena Fountain (or Pallas-Athene-Brunnen) in front of the Austrian Parliament building in Vienna. She represents the river Vltava (Moldau in German); the other three symbolise the rivers Danube, Inn and Elbe. The sculpture was created between 1893 and 1902 by Carl Kundmann, Josef Tautenhayn and Hugo Haerdlt, from plans by Baron von Hansen. Overall the work is intended to symbolise wisdom...

With thanks to Rainer Vesely for pointing me towards this.

5 comments:

  1. Cecilia O'Brien19 July, 2012

    The river Moldau is of course the subject of Smetana's most famous musical composition. It re-iterates an old Italian air (from sixteenth century Mantua ) which now via Smetana's opus has been incorporated into the Israeli national anthem - Hatikvah. Is the reference (with its complex chain of musical connections from Prosepro's world to ours) intended or accidental.

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  2. Thank you for this extra information. These waters are getting deeper and deeper...

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  3. Anonymous19 July, 2012

    I wonder whether this might by Dylan's last album since The Tempest is arguably Shakespeare's last play.

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  4. The Vltava is a bohemian river

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  5. Cecilia OBrien02 August, 2012

    Possibly also referencing another of Shakespeare's late works -- A Winters Tale set in Boehmia and plot turning on a statue. Does "Early Roman Kings" = Coriolinus, another late work??

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