Chris
Am Feierabend (What I love about this song)
I love…. the arresting piano introduction whose pounding chords set up the feeling of the physical nature of the work but also the frustration of the young poet – the missing third beat in combination with the rising phrase gives the passage a kind of staggering urgency the main theme: a wonderful, strong melody, so […]
Britten – Spirto ben nato (What I love about this song)
I love… how Britten’s simple and pure musical form, fashioned just from ascending scales and a free recitative in the voice, compliments the classical form of the sonnet so perfectly the upward trajectory of the rising octave scales in the piano part which set the scene and punctuate the ideas in the text, giving space […]
Auf einer Burg & Twilight Fancies (Song meets Song)
Two enigmatic songs, viewed side by side, seem to have a rapport: Schumann’s Auf einer Burg and Delius’ Twilight Fancies. Here are two mysterious characters who share a similar situation in different ways. Each dwells high up in a little chamber, cut off from the world. One is a stone statue, impervious to the day to day life going on […]