By 1817, which is when my long awaited story starts, stories about a miller's daughter were in fashion. Almost thirty years earlier, an opera buffa by Giovanni Paisiello, "L'amor contrastato ossia La molinara", in which the maid in the mill flirts with two suitors until she makes her choice, had been premiered with great success. The opera was performed throughout Europe and, according to that time, without any recordings or radio broadcasting. People got to know them because some transcriptions for piano or chamber ensembles from the more successful excerpts were written; that's the case of the variations that Beethoven wrote in 1795 from a duo and a quartet of Paisiello's opera (Nel cor più no mi sento and Quanto è bello l'amor contadino). In 1797 Goethe had written a few poems about a miller's daughter and between 1806 and 1808 Des Knaben Wunderhorn [...]

 

Franz Schubert was brought up in a catholic family, we know that for sure. Bearing that in mind, there are several theories about his religious feelings; Talking about people’s religious beliefs specially if they aren’t open about them, is always difficult. Apparently he moved away from his family’s beliefs, but he always kept some ties with them; in fact, many of his songs show some sort of religious feelings, often pantheistics: God’s identification with Nature was one of the main ideas during the literary Romanticism and often, Schubert took it in. Some Schubert’s songs clearly have some Catholic context: Ellens Gesang III, Vom mitleiden Mariä, Die junge Nonne. Some scholars think that these Lieder meet the composer's beliefs; others consider that when the text refers to the Virgin Mary, like the two first mentioned songs, Schubert is evoking his mother, who died when he was [...]

 

The Corn Poppy, the painting that illustrates this post, is an oil paint from 1919 by the Dutch painter Kees Van Dongen. It is not very large, 21 1/2 x 18 in, and it is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. For some time, a friend of mine often had to travel to that city and fell in love with those big eyes and their innocent expression. I’ve only seen the painting through reproductions but my friend made me fall in love with it too, it became our painting. Sometimes, doesn't it happen that you share with a friend the love for a movie, a song, a picture, and whenever you see or listen to it, it reminds of him or her?

 

 

I’ve been neglecting Mahler for a year, how could this happen? It's like one of those friends that one day, you realize you haven’t talked to for a longtime so you phone right away; when I noticed Mahler’s absence, I rush to choose one of his Lieder and the first volunteer was Der Tamboursg'sell (The drummer boy). I admit that I hesitated because it's a tough song but the drummer insisted...

Der Tamboursg'sell is the last Lied that Mahler wrote on a text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, during the  summer of 1901, and it was originally written with orchestral accompaniment. What we hear in it is terrifying: a drummer’s way from his cell to the gallows. [...]