Letters to Melanie KöchertThis is a love story. It tells of an extraordinary epistolary relationship between Hugo Wolf, one of the greatest masters of the German art song, whose dedication to the poetic spirit of his music was equaled only by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, and Melanie K chert, the wife of a prominent Viennese jeweler with whom Wolf shared a lifelong emotional, spiritual, and artistic bond. Wolf's letters to K chert--he wrote 245 between 1887 and 1899--were composed during a period of almost unprecedented cultural upheaval in Europe, in the shadow of Vienna during the era of Freud, Mahler, and Klimt. They reveal Wolf at his most optimistic, celebrating his concert successes and the solitude he believed was so precious to his ability to compose. They follow Wolf through times of overwhelming despair, when his musical failures left him profoundly alienated, overcome, as he revealed to K chert, "by a feeling of unspeakable emptiness and desolation." And they follow Wolf as he struggled to compose the 250 astounding art songs that are his creative legacy, and his almost simultaneous descent into madness. Hugo Wolf: Letters to Melanie K chert, sensitively translated by Wolf scholar and interpreter Louise McClelland Urban, is a literary and musical even of the highest order |
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1895 Dear gracious afternoon already arrived baron baroness beautiful Berlin best greetings Brixlegg Bruckner Christnacht completely composer concert Corregidor Dear gracious lady Der Corregidor devoted Hugo Wolf Dobling Elfenlied enclosed Faisst Feuerreiter finally flat Franz Schalk Frau going Graz greetings to Heinrich Grohe happy Herr Hoernes Honored gracious lady hope Humperdinck Jager Kapellmeister Kauffmann letter libretto Lipperheide look lovely m[onth Mainz Mannheim Matzen Mayreder Melanie Kochert Morike morning night noon Ochs opera orchestra performance person Philippsburg piano pleasant poems postcard Potpeschnigg rehearsal Rickelt Rinnbach Rosa Mayreder Schalk Schey Schott Schott Publishers score sent Siegfried Ochs sincere greetings sincerest greetings sing singer songs soon splendid stay Sternfeld Stuttgart Sunday thanks theater things tomorrow Traunkirchen Matzen Traunkirchen Vienna Traunsee trip Tubingen Unfortunately Unterach Vienna Berlin Vienna Matzen Vienna Perchtoldsdorf Viennese Wagner Society weather Weingartner writing these lines wrote yesterday