In 1848 and 1849, Germany lived from one revolution to another in different cities and in Dresden, where the Schumanns lived, it broke out in May 1949. Coinciding with this atmosphere of horrors and storms, Robert went back to Lieder after eight years of silence. The last week of March, he wrote the first cycle, Spanisches Liederspiel, op. 74; then Spanische Liebeslieder, op.138; between late April and early May he wrote Liederalbum für die Jugend, op. 79, (we talked about that one few weeks ago in order to celebrate spring). He kept on writing the whole year, to complete more than seventy Lieder.

Sometimes we forget that in addition to the three public musical seasons in Barcelona (Gran Teatre del Liceu, L'Auditori and Palau de la Música Catalana), we also have small and less known musical initiatives. They are usually called alternative but I'd rather say complementary, because their programs are pretty different so we aren't forced to choose one option or another. One of this private initiatives took place some weeks ago, it was the small-format festival “Da Camera” (heir of “Ópera de Butxaca”, or “Pocket Opera”), and I went to see Leonard Bernstein's opera Trouble in Tahiti. Before the opera, we listened to some songs including two cycles by Bernstein that I had not heard from a long time: The bonne cuisine and I hate music. A friend of mine encouraged me to write a post about the recipes (yes, that’s right: recipes) and here it is.

 

In the last post, we began the 3rd book of the novel. As you would remember, the first book takes place at Wilhelm's birthplace and we learn about his relationship with Marianne; in the second one, Wilhelm arrives at a small town for work and meets Mignon, the harpist and the theatre people. At the 3rd, there is a new change of scene and new characters are added to those already known.

 

 

This is the beginning of Saint George's legend according to the Catalan ethnologist Joan Amades, included in his work Costumari Català (collection of Catalan customs). Today it really takes an effort to think of the dragon as the incarnation of evil because we are used to seeing it represented [...]