schubert lieder | schubertreise

Schubert and rhetoric

While the best Schubert songs tend to be those with an obsessional musical idea driving forward the central argument (Die Junge Nonne,...

Schubert and Greek mythology part one

Schubert has a certain reputation as a composer of attractive ditties such as Die Forelle or Heidenröslein, but for those who wish to...

Irish heroes, Greek demi-gods, and sundry fraudsters

Tomorrow's programme features two mighty ballads, "Lodas Gespenst" and "Amphiaraos". "Lodas Gespenst" or "The Ghost of Loda" is a...

The week that's in it

Schubertreise XVII (imagine, almost halfway there) is approaching fast, and as usual I feel a mixture of fear and exaltation. Usually at...

Common sense/upcoming programme

When I began the Schubertreise series in Bever, my idea was to follow the Bärenreiter edition more or less as the thirteen volumes...

How it looked on the page

One of the perks in using the Bärenreiter Urtext edition of the Schubert songs is that the poetry set by Schubert is printed as Schubert...

Schubert's poets

Schubert set texts by no less than one hundred and eighteen poets, including one poem he wrote himself. Goethe (74), Schiller (44) and...

Fortepianos and Schubertreise

For the series of thirty five recitals in Jodoigne (Belgium) Michel Stas and I are very fortunate in having a variety of period...

Bärenreiter versus Peters continued

Yesterday I roundly criticized the Peters edition for its failure to publish the complete Schubert songs, thus limiting performers...

Master the music: memorizing all those songs

Indeed — how does one memorize 577 songs? Many years ago I came across a book entitled "How to conquer stage fright" written a long time...