I'll tell you a story; Bear with me and at the end, a beautiful song by Brahms will be waiting for you. Once upon a time young Peter, the handsome son of the Count of Provence, left home to see the world; he wasn't German but he suffered from fernweh. When he arrived at Naples, he heard about the beautiful Princess Magelone and he did what a knight does when he wants to get to know a Lady, jousting and winning. Peter and Magelone fell in love and he gave her three rings that his mother had given him in case he found the woman of his dreams during his journey. However, Magelone's father had already engaged her to another Gentleman so she asked Peter to take her to Provence and get married. So one night, they fled. Next day, while she was sleeping in the woods and he watched her over, a raven stole a little bag with the three rings and Peter run after it to recover them. [...]

 

 

When I write posts about the songs in a particular cycle, I don't usually follow their order. The only ones I could still complete in order are Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und -leben, and that's because I've shared just two songs of each one (mental note: we have been more than three years without listening to a song from Dichterliebe!). Nor do I begin a cycle in order to finish it, as I do with the series. I choose its songs according to the same sometimes-inexplicable impulses that make me choose any other song. In the case of Winterreise, they can be explained: the five lieder we've heard so far resulted from a friend’s gift, a guest post (which is also a gift from a friend) or of a overexposure to this cycle. Today we're listening to the sixth one thanks to TV.

 

About two years ago, I wrote a post about how programs including poems and their translations, which used to be so familiar at song recitals in Barcelona, were vanishing from concert halls. I asked if you also needed the poems, as I do, to fully enjoy the concerts and your answers were unanimous: all of you, audience members, singers and pianists, said that texts are essential, even if the songs are sung in our mother tongue. You also explained your reasons and suggested some alternatives to printed texts. Of course, the sample was small so my poll didn't have a high statistical value but it was very enlightening for me. Today, I'm talking from another side: singers who don't want the audience to have the texts.

 

Many French poems talk about animals. I don't know why; it might be due to medieval bestiaries or those fables by Jean de la Fontaine but the point is that we find lots of beasts in French poetry and you already know how poems become songs... I'm not saying that German poetry, for instance, doesn't refer to animals but, according to the Lieder, those are mostly birds, while in French poetry, we read about the most unusual creatures. We mentioned some of them when we talked about Chabrier's songs with the Ronsards' poems or Ravel and Renard's songs. Today our guests are Poulenc and Apollinaire.