If we made a list of the ten most passionate songs (already noted in my blog’s notebook),  Meine Liebe ist grün by Johannes Brahms would possibly be included. Short and vehement, romantic in every sense of the word. A drunk in love song, as the last line of the poem says, but most of all, a song surrounded by love. Do you know its story?

Robert Schumann was institutionalized in Endenich in February 1854 and he remained there until his death in July 1856. In June 1854, his eighth son was born and Johannes Brahms was his godfather; the child was named Felix in memory of Schumann's beloved friend, Felix Mendelssohn. At that moment, Brahms was only 21 years old; he had met the Schumanns the previous year and soon, they became good friends. Their relationship [...]

In the spring of 1948, Richard Strauss and his wife Pauline lived in retirement in Switzerland. The composer was about to turn 84 years old, not much time had passed since the end of (in Strauss's words) "the most terrible period of human history," and he was still under suspicion of having been a collaborator. Months before, he had returned from a trip to England during which he had managed to rehabilitate his image with the help of friends like Thomas Beechan, and in June that year, he was exonerated in his denazification trial as innocent; in early 1949, he went back to his home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where he died on September 6th. It was during the months between the spring and autumn of 1948 when he wrote his last works, five lieder, although the last one, Malven, was kept secret by the soprano Maria Jeritza to whom it was dedicated, and anything was known [...]