blue ribbon

Dear friends of piano music,

Why does this music sound so sad, I thought the other day when I was recording Tchaikovsky's “Song of the Lark”, March from the Seasons of the Year. It's a piece of spring after all, and in spring, when it starts to get lighter and warmer, when the first soft green, the first buds and flowers appear, at least I always get slightly euphoric. I still remember how last year I walked through the city and photographed every shrub, every flower pot and every front yard and came home full of colors, light and the scent of flowers - spring! Finally!

Spring has its blue ribbon

Fluttering through the airs again;

Sweet, well-known scents

Touch lightly and forbodingly the country.

The violets are already dreaming

Willing to come soon.

- Listen, the faint sound of a harp from afar!

Spring, yes it's you!

It's you I heard!

https://lyricstranslate.com/de/er-ists-its-him.html (It's Him)

(Mörike, one of the few poems that I know by heart… ..). Ah, the romantics, I always thought, they knew how to celebrate spring. But now that - the lark almost seems to be crying. When I asked my husband for his opinion, he just said, “It's in Russia, where the climate is continental and the winter is much longer. In March there is no spring at all, it is cold - that is why the lark is so melancholy. ”That initially convinced me, until I discovered this sad spring song by Chopin. “Andantino malinconico”, as Liszt wrote it in his arrangement for piano. Spring has clearly broken out in nature here, the surroundings are idyllic, bucolic, but the mood is gloomy. "Melancholy", from the Greek, literally translated means "black gall", which goes back to the ancient theory of humors and always sounds like a serious illness to me. I don't have any special medical knowledge, but the idea that any body fluids, be it the bile, could be black is extremely uncomfortable for me, it sounds like the beginning of the end - the exact opposite of spring. But of course that's not the point - it's more of an aestheticized Weltschmerz, not hot tears of despair, but a sadness and longing celebrated in the contrasting idyll. This is the special beauty of this piece, and I find the idea of ​​surrendering to Weltschmerz, indefinite longing and melancholy in a wonderful natural setting quite appealing. It is a form of emotional wealth, a luxury that we could actually indulge in if we took the time to do it. This sad spring song invites us to do the same. Have a nice spring!

Greetings from Heidelberg

Kerstin