... earn his living as a pianist: the Piano Concerto, the Sonata and the Serenade in A. During this period of the early 1920s he avoided string instruments because of their expressive nuances, preferring the clear articulation of wind, percussion, piano and even pianola. But he returned to the full orchestra to achieve the starkly presented Handel-Verdi imagery of the opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex ... economic conditions during and after the war made it practically impossible to secure performances for large-scale works, he composed The Soldier's Tale (1918); it calls for limited resources: si...

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