The bicentenary of Gretchen am Spinnrade, regarded as the first romantic Lied, was celebrated not long ago; Schubert composed it on 19th of October in 1814 that symbolizes the birth of the genre. A year and a half later, in April 1816, Beethoven wrote what is considered the first relevant song cycle, An die ferne Geliebte. Beethoven's songs, such as those of Haydn and Mozart, are usually viewed as classical. Does that mean that any important work of a romantic genre becomes classical? I don't think we should worry about this apparent contradiction; cultural movements know no calendars, their boundaries are blurred and bordered artists come and go between styles. If I'm mentioning this it's because I've noticed that some people feel too lazy to listen to Beethoven's Lieder, as if not being clearly romantic, would diminish its merit or beauty. So, please don't miss this week's [...]

 

After 2013, the year of Wagner and Britten, and 2014, the Year of Strauss, here is 2015, the Year of Sibelius and Schubert. We'll have some posts about Sibelius (it's about time!) to celebrate his 150th birth anniversary but we'll especially devote ourselves to Schubert (surprise, surprise!). We won’t commemorate any round anniversary of his birth or death but the bicentennial of his "year of miracles": during 1815, Schubert composed almost one hundred and fifty songs. We opened the celebrations in November, listening to a less-known Lied dated that year, Furcht der Geliebten; today we're listening to one of the most well-known Wandrers Nachtlied I (Wanderer's Nightsong I)

 

In September, when the season starts and I’ve got my brand new notebook ready, the first thing I do is to schedule those posts that I’ve previously known: Christmas, St. George's Day, Easter, etc. This year, in addition, as I was so happy with the Art Song season in Barcelona, I wrote down some posts "about the song recital of XX". For next week, I had scheduled a post about Francis Poulenc, which was one of the composers included in the program of Simon Keenlyside's recital at the Gran Teatre del Liceu.

But on Monday 22th of December, the opera house announced the cancellation of that recital. Given that the previous Saturday Keenlyside had to withdraw from Rigoletto in Vienna due to illness (a withdrawal with [...]

 

Have you seen how many children we’ve got today? They have come to celebrate with us the Twelfth Night. In each one of these eleven pictures, there is a boy or a girl who visited this blog before, as adults, to bring their music. Can you guess who they are? I think most of them are quite recognizable but, of course, I've got some insider info. So, just in case, I’ll give you some clues.

Before the clues though, a few remarks on those two pictures that may confuse you: in picture no. 1 there is a mother with her girl and her boy, we're interested in the boy. In picture no. 11, there are two children, ours is the one on the right; the one on the left is also a musician and he is the one who tweeted this picture.

 

Last year we closed the "Benjamin Britten Year" with two pieces of his A Ceremony of Carols; this week we are closing the "Richard Strauss Year" with two of his lieder, both about Christmas.

Richard Strauss wrote his first two works at the tender age of six. The first one was a polka and the second one was Weihnachtslied (Christmas Song), a short song from the first verse of a poem by Christian Schubart. As you can imagine it's a very simple song, and probably, it's merely an anecdote in Strauss's work but it's also a cute song and it's worth listening to it, at least once. Here you are, performed by Michelle Breedt and Nina Schumann.