The musical illustration is supposed to be the most important thing in my blog posts, but six years ago, online gurus warned that posting without graphic illustrations was virtually a digital suicide. So, I had to think what kind of images could illustrate my texts and songs. The singer's photograph? Sooner or later I would run out of photos and would have to reuse them. The same thing would happen with pianists, composers or poets. What about the album cover? But, not always there is an album available. Then I got it: a painting! It would somehow be a divertimento to find a painting for every post. And thanks to this decision, now I have a word for the Q letter in Liederabend's alphabet: Q is for Quadres, that's to say, for paintings. Otherwise, finding another word for such an unusual letter would have been a real problem!

 

I'm not thinking of stablishing 14th February as "Ophelia's Day" on Liedarabend, but I jotted down some Ophelia's songs in my notebook and we’ve only heard, so far, those of Brahms (last year, at the very same period) and Strauss (some weeks later). So, this week we're talking about Ophelia and Moniuszko, no matter the song doesn't talk exactly about Valentine's Day.

Stanisław Moniuszko is considered the father of Polish national opera; pieces such as Halka or Straszny Dwór (The Haunted House) made his name known beyond the Slavic countries. He's also considered the liaison between the most international figure in Polish music, Frédéric Chopin, and the greatest name of the [...]

 

Die Götter Griechenlands is a long poem written by Friedrich von Schiller in 1788. His publication in a magazine led to a huge controversy, and the poet was accused of being heretic and atheist because of his criticism towards Christianity. Two years later, he rewrote it and the twenty-five initial verses were reduced to sixteen. He probably had more reasons but deleting the most offensive remarks suggests he wasn't indifferent to that scandal. Despite having tempered it so much, the poem was still unpleasant for many people, and when it was published in 1805 (just a few controversial pages within a volume of poetry) the book was left on the highest shelves of bookcases in many homes, thus generating a kind of "Streisand effect" in the 19th century.

 

"Are you preparing the article about the anniversary? That of the title with numbers, right?" True-life. Yes, the day after tomorrow marks six years since I first posted; back then Liederabend was "only" this, one more on Blogger platform; In September 2013 I began to post in English and in June of 2014 I moved to this website, with many more possibilities. Thank you very much for helping me to make grow Liederabend and for celebrating with me this sixth anniversary.

During these years (and, new readers, these are the figures in the title), we heard 332 songs from 87 different composers, with poems of 164 poets; They were performed by 153 singers accompanied by 148 pianists (in[...]

 

A man is furious with his enemy. He doesn't say a word because he only talks to his friends. His anger grows, and he does nothing to avoid it, on the contrary: day by day, he nourishes it with his tears and his false smiles. Eventually, it bears fruit: an apple as appetizing as poisonous. Because hatred poisons whatever it touches. The man knows that his enemy will desire that apple. He won't wait long until he discovers, pleased, his corpse in the garden.

Songs often talk about love, sadness, hope, loneliness, peace, sometimes recount funny stories and more often, terrible dramas. We see ourselves reflected in these situations because we have experienced them, [...]