Some of you may remember the series I wrote about Wilhelm Masters songs, which began in October 2013 and ended eighteen posts later in June 2016. We all often heard in recitals the songs of Mignon and the harpist, included in Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, so the aim was to put them into context. Actually, there are fourteen songs in [...]
On 3 November 2021, I started a series of songs, “The Buch der Lieder and ten composers”. The series had a prologue, the article Buch der Lieder (I), in which I told you about this collection of poems by Heinrich Heine, one of the most important in German literature and fundamental in the history of Lied. Schubert and Schumann are the composers most closely [...]
For those of us who live near the Mediterranean, rosemary is a part of our culture, landscape, and gastronomy. We coexist with this simple shrub that is accustomed to drought, wind, and salt. Even when spring arrives and flowers, they do so discreetly, unlike other plants that have their glory moment with exuberant flowering. The rosemary's flower is tiny [...]
Goethe's Faust has not been as celebrated by composers as Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, by the same author. However, some of its songs have also been frequently set to music. The most famous are the sung by the female protagonist, Margaret; most notably, the one beginning with the verses "Meine Ruh' ist hin" (Gretchen am Spinnrade in Schubert's version), but also the [...]
Manuel de Falla premiered La vida breve in Paris, at the Opéra Comique, in January 1914. Shortly afterwards, an artist from the theatre approached him for advice: she wanted to perform some traditional Spanish songs at a concert she was due to perform in July at the Théâtre de l'Odéon. Could he suggest some pieces? At the time, the traditional song presented in concert was an [...]