I can't stop listening to this

I got hooked on a Schubert lieder kick after I went looking for a recording of this:



and discovered a baritone that I can't get enough of. Admittedly I wouldn't have noticed him as much if a friend hadn't commented on the singer as opposed to the song, but there you have it. Do you know the story of the Erlking? This Schubert lied is set to the text of the poem by Goethe which is in turn based on this German legend.

Isn't the piano part so excellent for this tale? And doesn't Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau do all the voices and characters so well? From Narrator, to Father, to Child, to charming and somewhat creepy Erlking? Since the first time I heard this, in a music history lesson that I was completely uninterested in, I have often gotten it stuck in my head. Playing it can be quite painful as the right hand just keeps banging out those octave triplets. My forearm hurts just thinking about it, and yet I crave a piano to bang it out on.

Here's Evgeny Kissin playing the Liszt transcription, all voices on the piano:



I saw Kissin play a concert in the Orpheum in Vancouver in 1999. I was meant to go with a co-worker, an elderly gentleman who taught singing in the room next to mine and loved classical music. He would give me a ride home from teaching with a new favourite interpreter to describe every time. Unfortunately he was also quite broke and had to cancel at the last minute. Fortunately, a former student had moved to Van and I was able to take her instead. Kind of funny really as without the interest of this man, I never would have thought to fly out there for it.

I was brutally sick... from eating anchovies I think...the discovery of an allergy? I came down with something like the worst bronchitis I've ever had and could barely breathe without coughing. A lot of the audience was sick as well and so in the moment or two between each song, a roar of coughing would let out and then everyone would hold their breath and he would begin the next piece. By the fourth piece, this whole coughing business was so absurd that he started to laugh when it all broke out. and the audience laughed too and then coughed some more. I think people were more self-conscious about noise than normal because it had been announced the concert was being recorded (for the CBC? I can't remember).

The other fantastic artist my friend introduced me to was the violinist Joshua Bell. The Kreisler album to be exact. What an incredible album.



Going back to the first video up there. I read about the setting on one of the videos, it`s an old palace near Munich...Schloss Ismaning, and that`s the Napoleon room (so named because the palace was built for a stepson of Napoleon). I love this comment someone wrote beneath

"I like the way Fischer-Dieskau starts it as if singing were just an extension of speech."


After a long hiatus and much annoyance, I have a new computer and some new inspiration to post. Also a lot of sorting out of files that are lost in the shuffle. Can it be that I may finally get it all in one spot? and actually know what it all is?