Creating/Vanishing: The Gypsy Muse in Works by Arnold, Kalda, Janáček, and Vaughan Williams

A dangerous gypsy muse inspires creativity in the two poems and their musical settings. While enacting their creations, the works perform vanishing acts too, in allusion to their superseding of previous works. Our interest in their vanished origins recalls Darwin’s fascination with the creative sources in Nature, with which the gypsy muse is associated.