1823 was not a very good year for Schubert. We know that he was seriously ill the first few weeks of that year (maybe even since the previous one) and was in hospital around the spring. We don't know exactly what his illness was. His friends kept silent about it but this silence as well some of the symptoms and comments about Schubert's morals (harsh and quite insensitive comments, I must say), lead us to believe that he suffered from a venereal disease, most probably syphilis.Song of the weeek: Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt (H. Wolf) - T. Allen, G. Parsons
This is the 5th post of the series about the songs composed from Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. If you missed the previous posts, here they are.A l'entrada anterior de la sèrie érem al capítol 13 del llibre segon, quan Wilhelm és al replà de la cambra de l'arpista i el sent cantar Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß; hi entra i li demana al vell que continuï cantant. El narrador ens explica com s'estableix un curiós diàleg en el qual Wilhelm pregunta i l'arpista respon amb cançons.
The world of the opera has been discussing music and libretto's importance for centuries: whether what singers say is significant and must be understood, if the story is worthy of attention, etc. The debate has produced even two operas: Prima la musica, poi le parole, written by Antonio Salieri in the late XVIIIth century, and Capriccio. composed by Richard Strauss in 1940.
