During nearly five years of weekly posts, I have published around forty of them with poems by Goethe. That is, almost a whole year with his verses. These forty songs are composed by eleven different composers, and half of them are from the apple of my eyes (that's to say, Schubert), among them, pearls as Geheimes or Rastlose Liebe. I also dedicated a long series to the songs included in Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, so it's no wonder that the G of Liederabend's alphabet is for Goethe... This letter was one of the easiest.

 

It was bound to happen: two weeks in a row calling on Mozart and now, in the 3rd, he turns to be our man. If this post had been written in July maybe I would have taken advantage of the relaxing summer to share the serenade from Don Giovanni, as I did a couple of summers ago with the Tanzlied des Pierrot from Die tote Stadt, but as we are at the peak of the season, I will share a Lied comme il faut.

Mozart wrote about thirty songs, distributed throughout all his life: from An die Freude, composed when he was twelve, until the last three (Sehnsucht nach dem Frühlinge, Im Frühlingsanfang and Das Kinderspiel) written on January 14th, 1791. I would say that his record was three songs in a day, but for him, it was usual to [...]

 

Have you ever wondered how Schubert died? We know that he suffered from syphilis, but, was it the cause of his death? According to some witnesses, Schubert’s death was unexpected. We know that on October 31st, 1828 he wasn't feeling well and was fasting because food didn't sit well with him, but it seems that he soon was quite recovered. On November 3rd, he attended a concert and the following day a class, he wanted to study again because he thought he didn't know enough about fugue and counterpoint. That weekend (November, 8th or 9th) he had diner at Baron Schönstein's home, who said he looked fine, relaxed and cheerful. A few days later, the 11th, Schubert had to bed rest; he didn't feel any pain, he just was extremely tired. He was up and about from time to time; he revised a brief work for choir and the edition of the second part of Winterreise; he felt [...]

 

Vivan le femmine, viva il buon vino! Sostegno e gloria d'umanità! It's always a good time to remember Mozart's Don Giovanni, and now it's quite relevant because I’ll talk about a song cycle that the dissoluto could have sung after his dinner if the Commendatore hadn’t arrived and interrupted him. There is sex, wine and irreverence in those songs, and a much more explicit language than the censorship would have allowed to Lorenzo da Ponte. I 'm talking about the Chansons Gaillardes by Francis Poulenc, that I jotted down in my notebook for today because they're programmed in Simon Keenlyside's recital at the Liceu; it's a good reason to introduce this cycle.