The letter D of my Liederabend's alphabet was for Dichterliebe and cycles, in general. I talked about how difficult is to define a cycle and gave some examples; today I'm expanding on my collection of complicated stories with the strange case of the cycle composed as a cycle, premiered as a cycle and vanished as such for fifty years.

We can’t help believing on the pseudo-romantic idea that true works of art are those made under dictation from a muse: those images of the writer writing a whole novel without rising from his chair or the painter that leaves his studio with tangled hair and a masterpiece on the easel. I'm not saying that there are no works created like that, but let’s face it... cinema has done a lot of damage. This pseudo-romantic idea has a corollary: the underrating of commissioned works. How could be art something brought about by a contract? And we forget that artists also enjoy eating regularly and to warm up in winter [...]

My dearest, happy New Year filled with music!

To finish our Christmas season, I'm sharing a song by Peter Cornelius, a composer who wrote several song cycles with religious themes, usually with his own texts. Four years ago I talked about his Weihnachtslieder, op. 8, which includes a very well-known song, Die Könige. Today we're listening to the next song, Simeon, which tells the presentation of Jesus at the Temple; it was customary for the parents to take the children at the temple forty days after their birth and to offer for them a pair of turtle-doves. The Christian calendar celebrates [...]

Last week I shared a Polish Christmas carol, a traditional one, arranged by Witold Lutosławski. The second Christmas song of this year is also traditional, but this time I'm not going so far, I stay at home: we're listening to El cant dels ocells (The song of the birds). I chose this piece of music especially for you, the readers of the English version of the post; the Catalan readers know it by heart but I thought that maybe you are not so familiar with it.

I hope you got into the Christmas spirit because today we're beginning the usual short series of three posts with songs related to these days; The next two will be in short format and after the Three Kings Day we will go back to normal.

I heard the songs I'm talking today in Catalunya Música a Christmas Eve, a couple of years ago. They caught my attention and I jotted down them in my notebook; They were the Dwadzieścia polskich kolęd (Twenty Polish Christmas Carols) by Witold Lutosławski [...]