I had fairly high expectations for this concert, Franz Schubert: Master Storyteller by Benjamin Appl and Sholto Kynoch, which was also the opening concert of this year’s Oxford International Song Festival, for three reasons. Firstly, I had heard their wonderful performance back in May in Heidelberg, Germany. Secondly, I have been a lover of Lieder …
The concert at Aula der Alten Universität Heidelberg at 19:30 was the 100th anniversary commemoration of the singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. A significant figure who contributed greatly to the cultural landscape after the war, especially in the German cultural heritage of Kunstlied (Art Song). His last pupil, Benjamin Appl, curated the programme using Fischer-Dieskau’s biography as …
“In the evening the dove returned and carried an olive leaf in its beak.” Bach’s St. Matthew Passion
“In the evening the dove returnedAnd carried an olive leaf in its beak.O beautiful time! O evening hour!We now make our peace with GodFor Jesus’s sufferings are ended.” From St. Matthew Passion no. 64 (an excerpt) In this short text of the recitative “Am Abend, da es kühle war” from J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, …
Have you ever had a beautiful dream and somehow lost it somewhere. Schubert’s Nacht und Träume is about bringing back this fair dream from above to us. If it is a beautiful dream, be courageous to dream again, and never let it go. Some dreams are messages from heaven about our purposes on earth. Only …
Time continues to play its organ diligently,Its little song sings to you every day,Mixed with sounds that are not cheerful,That no one wants to hear. The sounds continue. And as the years go byIt becomes a full singing society.It makes you go through the roof.You’d like to be somewhere else. Well, all right. You do …
At Easter 2022, I left my previous occupation as a church musician and started new life as a self-employed musician. Shortly before the Easter, I still have many vacation days available, so I travelled to Freiburg, Dresden, Postdam and Berlin for spinett shopping plus visiting my favourite concerts (Schubert’s Winterreise, Bach’s family). I remembered it …
“No one who was there will ever be able to forget the poignant effect of the St. Thomas Boys Choir singing Bach’s St John Passion on Good Friday in 1945, the first year of peace, performed in the beautiful old St Thomas Church, which had been largely spared from the war, but the windows were …
Today I accompanied 3 funerals on the organ. It was a very special day to accompany funeral on 19.12. Around 90% of the funerals that I played, bereaved families wish to have Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Von guten Mächten” (By Gracious Power) at the funeral. This poem is originally written for his fiancée Maria von Wedemeyer-Weller, in …
I am in the chapter 5 of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. The privileged, well-educated and moral-degraded college kids are getting more horrible page by page. I have only read 1/3 of the book, it is still too early to say anything definitive about the book. One thing for sure, Donna Tartt is an extraordinary …
I travelled and spent beautiful time with my little friend last week. Since I gave her “Schubert Sound Book” last year, she loves it so much that her parents got her Mozart and Bach. So “Schubert”, “Bach” and “Mozart” belong to her very first vocabulary next to “papa” and “mama”. The “Sound Book” series of …