A few days ago I read the article A la recerca dels llegats musicals perduts, ("In search of lost musical legacies") published by pianist Daniel Blanch on Sonograma Magazine on 29 October, where he explains the difficulties a researcher finds while he's trying to recover a composer's work after his death. There are artists who provide how their legacy should be managed; others, manage it while alive, and some don't stipulate anything and, this case, their heirs are expected to do it. Blanch's article describes a varied number of cases, and he does so in an [...]
I realized a few days ago that we haven't heard any of Schubert's Lieder since the beginning of the season. You know, I'm planning too little, and that's why things happen so strange that the apple of my eye goes away for three months. I miss him, and he would have been with us again in any case, but it turns out that I had made a note of his name in my blog notebook for this week. Because tomorrow, 19 November, we commemorate 192 years since his death — I plan for little, but I plan —, and I wanted to tell you about Die schöne Müllerin, inspired by the interpretation [...]
Perhaps one day the European Union will decide to do away with the time change. And what's more, they might decide to permanently set the winter-time, which is the most suitable to our biology, even if our social behaviour loves summer-time. To be honest, by that stage I'd be happy if clocks would keep still. No matter at which time. But still. Please. Meanwhile, and according to this lovely tradition, we come abruptly in the darkest weeks of the year the last Sunday in October, and people who began to complain about Autumn and its short evenings in September [...]
At a slow pace we arrived at the second part of Dichterliebe. Not only because we're listening to the ninth song out of sixteen, but because there is a point of inflection in the love story: if the poet still had some hope left, it vanishes at this song, where his beloved gets married.
Do the celebrations to commemorate the anniversaries of the composers make sense? The question arises with every enthusiastic celebration or with every birthday that goes unnoticed, that is, every year. It's assumed that, beyond paying homage to the composer and enjoying his music, the anniversaries should serve to disseminate his work, and some perspective is required to know if the aim was achieved. For example, the commemoration of 100th anniversary of Schubert's death in 1928 meant a major review of his figure and work. At the end of the century [...]