Antonín Dvořák started as a director at the National Conservatory of Music in New York in September 1892. He was reluctant to leave Europe, but when his wife found out about the salary he has been offered, all his excuses became useless, and they packed up and moved. Jeannette Meyer Thurber, a wealthy lady born in New York, a Danish violinist’s daughter, was behind that generous offer. After engaging other wealthy music lovers, in 1885, she founded the Conservatory which, according to her desires, would grant scholarships to students who could not afford [...]

Family and friends aside, live music and the sea are the two things I'm missing the most during these weeks that have already become months. As regards concerts, things seem to be moving along, and I’ve got really lost and I don't know at which unlockdown phase we’ll be allowed to go swimming; I'll be patient just a little longer, while we continue to listen to canned music only and looking at sea pictures. Or we can do both things at the same time.

The wunderschöne Monat Mai passed, and we are still locked down, except for a short daily walk in time and distance (not more than one hour, not farther than 1 km), so awkward and strange it is that I wouldn't call it a walk. If you live in a crowded place like Barcelona, you’ll understand what I’m saying; if you live in a place with less demographic pressure, I hope your daily walk is more enjoyable than ours. [...]

George Gordon Noel Byron's poetry soon had some extensive dissemination in Germany; some translations were distributed, and he also had some protectors such as Goethe, Heine and Müller, who was also the poet's biographer. Despite all of this, Lied composers were barely interested in Lord Byron. The exception was Carl Loewe, who put into music about twenty of his poems, but apart from these, just a few scattered Lieder are found, the best known of which is Mein Herz ist schwer, the no. 15 of Robert Schumann's Myrten. The rest are hardly performed in song recitals [...]

A poem whose stanzas all have the same regular structure seem suitable for a strophic song. Even more if it’s a lullaby. The composer will surely consider that five stanzas are long enough; or perhaps not, and he will put performers and audience to test by repeating six of the eight verses of each stanza. This is our Schubert! Either the 19th-century audience was more patient than we are or he thought he was more than capable of making a pure strophic song which lasted seven or eight minutes and flew by as they were two, as it's Wiegenlied, D 867 (He must have been pleased [...]