When a composer dedicates a work to a recently deceased composer, it's a sign of sorrow, respect and affection. If he dedicates it to the memory of a composer who died seventy years or two centuries ago, it will be a delicacy that speaks above all about admiration and gratitude. But if the composer does not use the most common formulas, “remembering” or [...]

This summer, visiting the Schubertada will feel like visiting Vienna. Maybe you're thinking this happens every year, almost by definition, and you're right (shouldn't Vilabertran and Vienna become sister cities? I can imagine the sign on the roundabout exit), but that's the idea that came to my mind when I went through the programming. Let's see…

When I was preparing the article about the death of Hugo Wolf two weeks ago, I listened to different performances of the song I chose to illustrate it. If you remember, it was Ergebung, a work for mixed choir. Max Reger's arrangement for male choir caught my attention during my review. This composer devoted a great deal of time to Hugo Wolf's work between 1898 (at his 25) [...]

Songs of Travel by Ralph Vaughan Williams was premiered (along with another song cycle, The House of Life) in 1904, when he was thirty-two and the end of his first stage as a composer was approaching; he would soon show interest in his country's folklore and reflect it in his music, beginning the second compositional period. But the music of the early years showed post-romantic traits and the influence of his time in Germany

We all have in mind what the nineteenth century lunatic asylums were like thanks to cinema (and literature), it won't be hard for us to understand Hugo Wolf's horror and suffering when he was locked up. He arrived at Dr. Svetlin's private mental sanatorium on 19 September 1897. He was deceived; his friends made him believe they were going to the Emperor's residence to sign [...]