Song of the week: Liebesbotschaft (R. Schumann) - G. Finley, J. Drake
I wasn't able to remember what followed before or after, just this fragment; at first I didn't even “hear” the piano, just the tune. Where did that music come from? And… why in that precise moment? After a while (you know how those earworms work…so persistent) I knew there was a piano and later I could “hear” a voice. Knowing there were piano and voice, no doubt it was a song. But whose voice was that? And what were the words? I could only tell that it was a baritone voice, surprise, surprise!
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 
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 
“It's said that a fierce, terrible monster devastated the outskirts of Montblanc; he was able to walk, fly and swimm, and his breath stank so much that it poisoned the air and everybody who breathed it, even from far away, died. It wreaked havoc upon herds and people and the whole land was absolutely terrified.”
