blending an assortment of thoughts and experiences for my friends, relations and kindred spirit

blending an assortment of thoughts and experiences for my friends, relations and kindred spirit
By Alison Hobbs, blending a mixture of thoughts and experiences for friends, relations and kindred spirits.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Back to familiar territory

Enough about entrepreneurship; I feel far more at home with German Lieder.

Tanya and I introduced our German conversation group to some recordings of songs by Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert this morning, sung by Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Nicolai Gedda and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. We played recordings of Das Veilchen (full of pathos), Der Floh (funny), Ich Liebe Dich (tenderly romantic) and Erlkönig (spine-chillingly dramatic—click here), three of which were settings of poems by Goethe. Our friend Melita, who has just turned 80, is a good enough accompanist to be able to sight-read the accompaniment to Schubert's setting of Müller's Der Lindenbaum as well, to which which eight of us sang along (before hearing Fischer-Dieskau's rather better performance, with Gerald Moore accompanying).

Then I came home and took some photographs of spring flowers.

P.S. For a comic recital of Erlkönig, click here!

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