The first time I read Pride and Prejudice, as a teenager, the lines we find in chapter 22, just after Charlotte Lucas has agreed to marry William Collins, a stupid and pompous man,impressed me, and I copied them to a notebook. Reading this chapter, I was sorry for the poor Charlotte, who was not only condemned to living with, but to the service of, someone so unbearable. I was surprised [...]

Like other years, we end the Christmas cycle with a song dedicated to the Three Wise Men. This year, however, with a small licence because we will hear a Gregorian chant. Or, rather, an adaptation of a Gregorian chat that Anna Lucia Richter and Ammiel Bushakevitz included in their album Licht, a recording that covers 800 years of German song,

There are two elements in the Christmas song we listened to last week, Mariä Wiegenlied, that can be understood as symbols of the crucifixion: the rose garden (with its thorns) and the bird. We can find similar details in many paintings that show the Madonna with the Child. The artist reminds us of what is ahead; a future that the mother is aware of in some way.

Last spring, we listened to Trost, a song by Max Reger. I told you then that the composer was a rara avis who was not interested in affiliating himself to any aesthetic current. Furthermore, he admitted without any problem that among his closest references were Hugo Wolf and Johannes Brahms, a shocking affirmation at the time. Regers music confused critics, and this confusion [...]

When we returned to school after the summer, my grandmother used to say: “In a few days, it will be Christmas”. And we used to say: “Oh, Granny, it's ages until Christmas!” For children, three months was a long, long time; however, my grandmother probably began to organize in her head the many big and small things that had to be prepared and considered. And one day, [...]