We're reaching our third and last post of this mini-series in collaboration with Isabel Villagar and her blog La brújula del canto. As usual, a warm welcome to her readers. As you may remember, we thought of focusing on the most famous Lieder, so famous indeed that we might not know they're Lieder; The seed of the series was an article I posted four years ago. We previously listened to the most famous work of Brahms, his lullaby (one of his lullabies, in fact); Also, the best known work of Haydn, the German National Anthem, and today we're listening to the best-known work of Schubert. And yes, the three of them are Lieder. However, this Schubert's work, despite being his best-known, wasn't written by Schubert. Or not exactly. Or not entirely. Perhaps I should explain myself, shouldn't I?

 

In my previous post of the Wilhelm Meister's series, I told you the story of Mignon that, as we discovered, was also the story of the harpist: they were father and daughter, even though they didn't know it. Wilhelm and his friends learned it almost by chance, when the Marquis noticed a tattoo on the dead girl's arm and identified her as his missing niece. Now we go into Chapter 10 of Book VIII, the last one of the novel. Wilhelm and his friends must decide whether to tell the Marquis what they know about his brother Augustin, the harpist, so they decide to send a letter to ask the doctor who's taking care of him if the harpist would be prepared to hear the news. When they start worrying because they don't get an answer, the doctor arrives at the castle, accompanied by a stranger, a relatively young man, well dressed and looking calm. Wilhelm recognizes him when he hears [...]

 

A few days ago some tweeps had a conversation about the programme of mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato in the song series at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid (a similar programme to that of Renée Fleming at the Teatro Real some days before) that mixed without complexes song, opera and zarzuela. We wondered in that conversation why some singers, when they have a reputation that allows them to do whatever they want, do "that" and we described the program as meaningless, inconsistent or odd. We ruled out that they don't know how to make a good programme (of course they do!), we asked ourselves if it has something to do with the way they understand showbiz (given that both singers are American), and we point out that maybe it has more to do with singers and promoters' profile (promoters meaning also audience). If Mrs DiDonato and Mrs Fleming were [...]

 

On 31th August 1888, Hugo Wolf had just come back to Vienna from Bayreuth and was staying at his friend Friedrich Eckstein's place, a house in a busy neighborhood. The composer was walking along the garden trying to read some poetry by Joseph von Eichendorff but noise from a nearby factory disturbed him, and someone whistled and a carpet was rhythmically being shaken. How on earth could he concentrate on reading! Suddenly, however, he got into the house, sat at the piano and composed Verschwiegene Liebe in one go. That's how Ernst Decsay explains it in his composer’s biography, the first one to be published; maybe he embellishes a bit the story but truth is that Wolf borrowed his friend his house near Lake Attersee, much quieter, and between 21st and 29th September, he wrote ten lieder on Eichendorff's poems since he used to compose very fast when [...]

 

We're arriving at the last three posts in the series about Wilhelm Meister's songs, all being well, the series will be finished before this season ends. In our previous post of the series, I talked about Mignon's death and funeral (Chapters 3 to 8 in the VIII book). During the ceremony, and thus we ended it, the Marquis, a gentleman who happens to be in the castle on business trip, notices a tattoo on Mignon's arm and identifies her as his missing niece. We get now into Chapter 9, the penultimate one in the novel, where the abbot reads to the group the story that the Marquis told him. I've already metioned that Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship is full of soap opera plot twists, haven't I? Well, just keep reading...