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 […]
Wolf – Anakreons Grab (What I love about this song)
I love … the poem’s brevity and form: the long and structured sentence which sets up the beauty of the location before asking the question, and then the simplicity of the answer how the 2 bar piano introduction, with its lack of movement and its falling 7th, sets up the peacefulness of the song but […]
Therese & Serenade (Song meets Song)
Here are two gentle, intimate Brahms songs where the singer addresses someone younger – Therese op. 86 no. 1 (text by Keller) and Serenade “Liebliches Kind” op. 70 no. 3 (text by Goethe) In Therese the young person’s eyes have obviously revealed some intense feelings, which read like a delightful and provocative question to the […]
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 […]
Chabrier – Lied (What I love about this song)
I love… The skipping, prancing, merry introduction, and how just before the verse begins the surprise appoggiatura causes a sudden suggestive, eyebrow-raising hiatus That little 4 bar phrase with the low repeated notes in the voice – in the first verse it introduces the scary, magical element, in the 2nd verse it’s Berthe confidentially indicating […]