Neuland.Lied | Meine Liebe ist grün

»My love is green like the lilac bush / And my love is beautiful like the sun; / Which shines down on the lilac bush / And fills it with fragrance and with delight.« Felix Schumann, Robert and Clara's youngest son, composed these verses. Johannes Brahms, who is said to have loved the young man (1854-1879) as his own child, set them to music as a Christmas gift for Clara in 1873. The harmony of natural idyll and exuberance of feeling pervades the finely composed program of duets and solo songs with which Katharina Konradi and Catriona Morison bridge the gap between German and French song culture. Immediately beneath the veneer of such happiness, the tragedy of female fates in particular is revealed. In his four »Mädchenlieder« of 1851, Robert Schumann set poems by the lyricist Elisabeth Kulmann (1808-1825), who died at the age of only 17. Goethe and Jean Paul had once predicted a great future for the highly talented daughter of a German and a Russian officer. Maria Malibran - like her sister Pauline Viardot-García not only an epoch-making singer but also a talented composer – also lived to be only 28 years old. After a serious fall from her horse in London's Hyde Park, she forwent medical treatment; in 1836 she succumbed to her internal injuries.

Concert with intermission

In cooperation with Heidelberg University

Neuland.Lied is a project of

Neuland.Lied is sponsored by