One of my friends says that Romanticism was really damaging, and we still suffer the consequences. I agree on some aspects; for example, now, already in the 21st century, we still carry certain habits that are nothing but distortions of the original, as it happens with the adjective "romantic"; Its current meaning has little to do with what it used to mean. We emptied its significance up to the point that we forgot that Romanticism was a revolutionary movement, a reaction to the Enlightenment. For my friend, and me, Enlightenment is a fascinating period: to break away with absolutism and lay the foundations for modernity, scientific and social advances, reason as the light that will end darkness, knowledge as the path to happiness ... What could go wrong? Maybe their faith in reason was excessive and Kantian severity could become quite annoying; sooner or later [...]

 

This week I'm advancing the posting one day because today was presented the programme of the Schubertíada 2018, with many new things and many lied recitals, and I wanted to share it with you right away!

 

Let's begin with the Schubertíiade Vilabertran, the 26th edition, which will take place from August 17th to September 2nd; There will be sixteen concerts; among them, eleven song recitals. Yes, you read it right, eleven. You can mark in your diary an important week, the seven recitals from the 21st to the 27th of August; The first three song recitals will be held during the first weekend of the Schubertíada and the last one, during the last weekend. The opening concert is again given for a young singer accompanied by Wolfram Rieger; last year the  [...]

 

 

The musical illustration is supposed to be the most important thing in my blog posts, but six years ago, online gurus warned that posting without graphic illustrations was virtually a digital suicide. So, I had to think what kind of images could illustrate my texts and songs. The singer's photograph? Sooner or later I would run out of photos and would have to reuse them. The same thing would happen with pianists, composers or poets. What about the album cover? But, not always there is an album available. Then I got it: a painting! It would somehow be a divertimento to find a painting for every post. And thanks to this decision, now I have a word for the Q letter in Liederabend's alphabet: Q is for Quadres, that's to say, for paintings. Otherwise, finding another word for such an unusual letter would have been a real problem!

 

I'm not thinking of stablishing 14th February as "Ophelia's Day" on Liedarabend, but I jotted down some Ophelia's songs in my notebook and we’ve only heard, so far, those of Brahms (last year, at the very same period) and Strauss (some weeks later). So, this week we're talking about Ophelia and Moniuszko, no matter the song doesn't talk exactly about Valentine's Day.

Stanisław Moniuszko is considered the father of Polish national opera; pieces such as Halka or Straszny Dwór (The Haunted House) made his name known beyond the Slavic countries. He's also considered the liaison between the most international figure in Polish music, Frédéric Chopin, and the greatest name of the [...]