A few years ago, I first spoke to you about Eleonore van der Straaten. Well, it's a saying because the most strange thing about this author was, precisely, the lack of information about her. I wasn't even sure if the few data I had collected actually corresponded to our Eleonore because I found two different birthdates and several similar surnames.

Ludwig Rellstab was born in Berlin in 1799 to an influential, wealthy and musical family: his father was a pianist and publisher and his mother a singer. Ludwig received what is often called a solid education; he even played piano in several concerts, but eventually, his career turned to arts; he wrote theatre and poetry and was celebrated, above all, as a sharp tongue literary and musical critic with strong opinions.

In March 1933 Karl Weigl was a renowned composer, so successful that by the mid-1930s he had considerably reduced his dedication to teaching because he could practically earn his living from composition. He was born in Vienna in 1881; at his 15, he began to receive lessons from Alexander Zemlinski, a family friend. In 1903, he defended his doctoral thesis; Soon after his dissertation adviser, Guido Adler (one of the fathers of musicology as a scientific discipline) spoke of the young man [...]

A few weeks ago I saw in Instagram some pictures of a new Lied festival in Germany. I realized that many Lied festivals had appeared during the last few years and I thought I could talk about them, to celebrate with readers that, as one of the most usual song-related hashtags says, #dasLiedlebt (the Lied is alive). You never know, maybe we will coincide with some of these events  in a city break. Or maybe we will check the programme and will organize that city break.

The season is about to end, and a few days ago I was going through my notebook to arrange my notes. And I found a note referring to the Schubertíada 2021. Perhaps you remember that in the first post in September I told you that the artists had been particularly opportune with the encores, and a few weeks later I talked about one of them, Abschied von der Erde. Well, I'll talk about another one today.