- Details
Here one more letter in my Liederabend's alphabet, H is for humour. Yes, you’ve read that right, humour, sense of humour. I know, most of the songs we usually hear here are sad, or very sad, or rapturous, or solemn; Romantics didn't have much of a sense of humour, and poets were engaged in serious, deep thoughts. But even they couldn't occasionally help laughing! Also, we’ve often listened to an English or French song, and they usually make us laugh more than a German song. So today we're stopping to go over those fun songs that cheered us up among so much darkness.
- Details
By 1933, Erich Korngold had spent several years mainly working on operettas; making some adaptations in collaboration with the theatre director Max Reinhardt. He was a bit fed up with that because so many trips and rehearsals prevented him from writing his own music. However, on the other hand, it was financially worthwhile; thank to that money, he could get married and, that year, he bought a house in the Alps which became his refuge. That summer, taking advantage of a break between operettas, the composer wrote a song cycle, Unvergänglichkeit, op. 27, with poems of Eleonore van der Straten, which was premiered in Vienna in 1937.
- Details
Back to normal after three Christmas posts with a guest post by Isabel Villagar. Isabel is singing teacher and author of the blog La brújula del canto, and gives us some guidelines on how to initiate students into song singing. Thanks, Isabel!- Details
This is the third and last Christmas post of this season (next week we’ll get back back to normal with a guest post) and is dedicated, like the last one, to the Three Holy Kings. They are about to arrive! In my previous post, we celebrated the Epiphany in the German way; A friend told me not long ago that German children still spent that day going from house to house, disguised as the Kings and singing songs. This week we're celebrating in my local style, with the image of children going to bed. Children are extremely excited the eve of the Epiphany, because that night, while they're sleeping, the Kings bring them their gifts; When they get up (very early in the morning, my poor parents!) they'll find out if their wishes came true. As you can imagine, they can hardly fall asleep, as far as they know, if the Kings find them awake, they won't leave any gifts. (I remember covering my head with the bedsheet if I heard footsteps or noise during the night...). So, that night, children need a cradle song more than ever.
- Details
In 1888, Hugo Wolf spent Christmas with the Köcherts: Heinrich, Melanie and their daughters. Melanie's birthday was on Epiphany, and Wolf and the children's gift was a song. To write a song, Wolf needed a poem, of course. He was, at that time, with his Goethe songs (he had written the first one on October, 27th and would write the last one on February, 12th), so it had to be a Goethe's poem. It's a funny poem (that's to say, the serious Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote at least two funny poems), a short scene for a party held on Epiphany of 1781. It begins by introducing the three Holy Kings and continues with an individual introduction of Melchior, Gaspar and Balthasar. The Holy Kings are miles away from their traditional solemn image: they love eating and drinking (and not paying for it) and there are quite sensitive to feminine charms. As we know, they're[...]
Series
