Alkonyi szimfónia. Twilight Symphony by Tivadar Raith on Földvári Books

Raith, Tivadar

Alkonyi szimfónia. [Twilight Symphony].

Paris (Békéscsaba): Maxime Ferenczi (Tevan), 1914. 4 original woodcuts by Ernst Kempter (2) and Aloys Ludwig Wach (2). First edition. In original illustrated soft cover. 24 p. In fine condition.

Prose poems, the first book of Raith, an important figure in the Hungarian Avant-garde, who made the earliest translations of Apollinaire (published in the first issue of “Tett”), and whose 1916 “Páris, Liège, Trencsényteplic” (also in “Tett”) is now thought to be a source for Kassák’s greatest poem. The woodcuts by the Swiss-born Kempter, whose work later appeared in “Das Kunstfenster,” among other places, are especially striking. Prints by Aloys Ludwig Wachlmayr (later called Aloys Ludwig Wach, and here called Louis Marion Wachlmeier) were published in “Der Sturm,” “Der Weg,” and “Das Kunstblatt” often in the service of revolution. In “Alkonyi szimfónia” one finds a perfect instance of the interlocking circles of the international Avant-garde in the early teens.