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We are in peak summer and it seems that anything has changed at Liederabend... Shouldn’t summer be a time to relax and slow down our pace? Anyway, in two weeks’ time, we're beginning four brief posts focused on the programme of the Schubertiade Vilabertran but today we could listen to something lighter than Lied.- Details
Within the opus of the composer Enrique Granados (Lleida, Spain 1867-1916), his works for voice and piano carry great weight; they represent on the one hand, the will to transcend with lyrical flights from the keyboard (of which he was a master as performer, improviser and composer) and on other hand, with his intention to create a corpus of great quality, that would be an equal to the great song cycles by the rest of the European composers, and which due to the zarzuela output by Spanish composers in the 19th century, had been overwhelmingly marginalized. His corpus is articulated around two fundamental cycles, the Tonadillas and Amatorias which, as we will see, are very different in style and features. They are heterogenic cycles but both represent two milestones in terms of the extensive Lieder compositions in the first quarter of the 20th century; they open the way [...]- Details
Last post of Liederabend's alphabet before the end of the season, D is for Dichterliebe. In fact, it was about to be "C is for cycle", but then C is for contemporary wouldn't have been possible; choosing an alphabet has something to do with puzzles. So I thought I could choose a cycle that would represent all of them. I could have chosen "W is for Winterreise" but W was occupied with... Well, W was already occupied. And as I said the last time that I spoke about it, I'm crazy about Dichterliebe. I would say there is no other cycle I've listened so much, so greedily; sometimes I avoid listening to it because I know that I could initiate another Dichterliebedependency period. Why do I love it so much? Here I give you five reasons, there are many more ...
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Matthäus von Collin was an influential gentleman in the Vienna of the early 19th century. Tutor of Napoleon's son, professor of History and Philosophy at the University, host of an important cultural salon, part-time poet and friends with Josef von Spaun. We're especially interested in those last three aspects because Collin was one of those middled-aged gentlemen who, after Spaun had introduced them, befriended Schubert, welcomed him to his household, spread his music and introduced him to other influential people. Unfortunately, this relationship didn't last very long because Collin died in 1824, at forty-five; at least, it resulted in five Lieder, one of which we heard a while ago: the beautiful Nacht und Träume, composed after the poet's death.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the day has come! This is our nineteenth and last post in a series that started two years, eight months and twenty-six days ago: the series on the songs of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, by Johann Wolfgang Goethe. As you know, those songs are related to what is happening in the novel, but don't really explain it which turns Mignon or the harpist, common characters in recitals, into perfect strangers. So it was a day that I thought of beginning a post series that would put songs into context by explaining the plot of the novel.And that's what I roughly did in my eighteen previous posts. I said "roughly" because, unwilling to challenge your patience, I confined myself to talk about the essential stories and characters, avoiding many interesting people or things; for instance, Therese, who would have deserved more scope. The novel talks [...]
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