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I talked some time ago about clichés that describe Art Song as a second-class genre performed by second-class singers and second-class pianists. It's all nonsense, of course. I remembered that post while reading an interview with the baritone Christian Gerhaher. He was asked about the differences between opera and lied and he spoke about the length of Winterreise. As we all know, this cycle lasts about seventy minutes performed without pauses while most of opera participations are shorter (Ian Bostridge also refers to that in his book about Winterreise and says that it's also one of the longest works for pianists).- Details
While preparing recent posts I thought about this week's and how different those songs were about to listen today, written at the XXI century; it will be a shock to our ears, so used to the nineteenth century. I like these contemporaries jolts, they often pose a different musical language that compels us to listen in a different way. The song this week is very new and yet very old, and I also like that very much.- Details
I like bees. Perhaps, because they are so organized and diligent, perhaps because the beehives are order and beauty, or because I never had an unpleasant encounter with them; Or just because I watched too much TV as a child. Bees couldn't be absent from my list of buggy songs, and even less, a song as delightful as Der Knabe und das Immlein, by Eduard Mörike, a poet that I mention from time to time because I like the songs that Hugo Wolf, who was so fond of him, wrote from his poems.
Der Knabe und das Immlein is the second Lied of Wolf's long collection of fifty-three Mörike Lieder. It was composed the 22nd February 1888 and as soon as he finished it, an excited Wolf wrote to a friend telling him [...]
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There are songs and songs. The one we're listening this week deserves a prominent place in an Lied's honor roll. Or at least, so I think; please, just take your time to listen to it and then tell me... The song is Die Mainacht by Johannes Brahms, the no. 2 of his opus 43, composed in 1866 (when the composer was thirty-three) from a poem by Ludwig Hölty. We have an example of pure romanticism in those verses, with three of its main theme: night, nature and solitude. The poet wanders through the woods at night and feels terribly lonely. Brahms makes us feel that loneliness, and how!
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We continue our journey through the novel "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" by Goethe, and we arrive at the 12th post of the series about its songs.In our previous post, we left the novel at chapter 10 in book V, when Wilhelm was in his room, awake, with Philine's slippers on his hands, hesitant (which is, as you know, his natural state). Now it's the opening night of Hamlet, with Wilhelm in the leading role; the performance has been a success, all the actors have been praised and the company celebrates with a dinner party. They eat and drink (mostly drinking…), sing and dance.
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