Posted in Folk Music on Aug 5th, 2008 3 Comments »
Wisewebwoman’s recent moving post about emigration and feelings of rejection has prompted thoughts of exile. So I’m posting this heartbreaking song, written from letters a father sent to his son emigrated to America and whom he never saw again.
Posted in Classical on Aug 5th, 2008 No Comments »
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was one of the most intelligent and thoughtful sopranos of the twentieth century. He voice wasn’t large but it had a mature sweetness and a melting quality that made it uniquely adapted to the music of the romantic composers, notably Richard Strauss. She was concerned with vocal quality but even more so about words, and the drama in the song. She was one of the great lieder singers. There were times, perhaps, later on, when her art occasionally tipped over into artfulness, a little self-regarding. But here she is at her finest. Singing Schumann’s Der Nussbaum at a concert in Carnegie Hall in November 1956. Particularly impressive is how, in the last verse, her voice withdraws as she becomes the young woman sinking back under the nut tree into her dream of him. The pianist is George Reeves.
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