Hana Blažíková & Andreas Staier
Sehnsuchtlieder
Together, Hana Blažíková & Andreas Staier give form to the voice of nostalgia, longing and melancholy. The current and previous artists in residence at AMUZ bring songs by Chopin, Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn to the stage.
In 1814, Franz Schubert set the tone for the Romantic art song. He had a poetic affinity with late 18th century German poetry, and followed Goethe’s literary work closely. As the son of a bookseller and publisher, Schumann was also very fond of good literature. Allow yourself to be moved by both the poetry and his poignant musical settings. Seventeen of Chopin’s lieder were published posthumously by his friend Julian Fontana, as Opus 74. Like his piano works, these are Chopin’s personal, stylised versions of Polish music. His distant homeland is evoked more directly in the texts, written by poets in Chopin’s circle of friends who, like him, lived in exile in Paris. Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words were a typical 19th century genre: one-part keyboard pieces in which the composer expresses the inspiration and feeling of the moment: a musical snapshot, as it were. Enjoy an afternoon of warm, beautiful and poetic notes!