If you are regular readers of Liederabend, you’ll know that whenever I recommend a song from a cycle, I always suggest listening to the whole thing, because when I present the songs one by one, I inevitably take them out of context. And, in general, if they form part of a cycle, there is a reason for it.

For the early Romantics, nature was essential. Being in it was a journey towards oneself, a form of self-knowledge. And since they were only just discovering individuality as well, in a context in which individuals mattered little, contact with nature was indispensable for advancing along this path.

The Wagners and the Wesendoncks met in Zurich in 1852. Richard and Minna Wagner had not been there for long; the failure of the Dresden uprising in 1849 had driven them into exile, first to Paris and then to the Swiss city. Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck, for their part, had also just arrived there from New York, where the wealthy businessman had business interests..

The first Christmas song of this year was one only in its title; in reality, it was a cry full of anger in the midst of war. The second came closer, but still wasn’t quite one. That is why, to await the turn of the year and the arrival of the Three Wise Men, I have chosen a genuine carol, with the Baby Jesus, the shepherds, the offerings, and the joy for the hope that has just been born.

In 1823, Fanny Mendelssohn (she would not become Fanny Hensel until several years later) composed eight Lieder inspired by poems by Wilhelm Müller, all of them taken from the first part of his collection Sieben und siebzig Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten [Seventy-seven poems from the posthumous papers of a travelling horn-player] [...]