In December 1790, shortly before his departure for London, Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809) dined with his friend and former pupil Mozart, and the Dutch aristocrat, Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Mozart was uneasy; Haydn was famous internationally but had rarely travelled, having spent most of the previous 30 years ensconced in rural Eisenstadt as the…
Tag: Vocal
Murder, He Wrote …
In his day, Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa (c1561 – 1613) was known as “il musical macellaio di Venosa” (the musical butcher of Venosa), not for his provocative musical harmonies but for his unseemly penchant for murder.
From Major to Minor – Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin
With the song-cycle Die Schöne Müllerin (“The Miller’s Lovely Daughter”), Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828) crafts one of his most loved and deeply-felt works. Its beguilingly simple tale of youthful optimism and unrequited love is a universal one in which the protagonist, an infatuated young miller, lurches from fervent passion to the leaden depths of despair and, ultimately, perdition.