We went to hear a postponed talk by Ian Bostridge in a local church, connected to his new book on Winterreise<\/i>. He talked in general terms about the work’s history and his own performance history of it, and then expanded his thoughts on a few of the songs: their structure, mood and influence. I was interested to learn that the poems in the second half of the cycle were written after Schubert had set the first half; Schubert declined to insert settings of these poems in between those he had already composed, which may account for the disjointed narrative of the second half of the cycle.<\/p>\n
There were just a few questions at the end. An inherent danger with post-talk question-and-answer sessions is that they get taken over by people who like the sound of their own voices, and talk at length before allowing the speaker to make a short reply. A particular hazard when many in the audience are singers!<\/p>\n
The evening was also a fine assembly of Bath’s musical great and good, and a chance to catch up with chatting to a few of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We went to hear a postponed talk by Ian Bostridge in a local church, connected to his new book on Winterreise. He talked in general terms about the work’s history and his own performance history of it, and then expanded … Continue reading