Liederabend LXVII: Lovers and Other Monsters - Songs Celebrating the Legacy of Charles Beaudelaire

In his short life, Charles Baudelaire cast his ruthless eye on the city of Paris, its pleasures and terrors. The poems in his collection, Les fleurs du mal, forged new relationships between writer, reader, and society as they responded to a world in catastrophe: a soul in crisis.

Our first Liederabend of the season celebrates Baudelaire’s wide-ranging influence on the literature of the 20th century, pairing his most well-known musical settings with contemporary vocal works which share some of Baudelaire’s favorite tropes - transgression, disenchantment, restlessness, and the ecstasies and anxieties of modern life. Tonight's program is curated by J.J. Penna

The Liederabend—literally, "evening of song"—dates back to the 1800s, when musicians and lovers of music would gather at someone's home, and one or more singers and a pianist would perform the songs of composers of the day. In the field of classical music, these songs are referred to as "art songs," and the German art songs are called "Lieder." In Germany, the great age of song came in the 19th century. German and Austrian composers had written music for voice with keyboard before this time, but it was with the flowering of German literature in the Classical and Romantic eras that composers found high inspiration in great poetry, sparking the genre known as the "Lied."

The tradition of the art song composition continues today, with composers from all corners of the world setting poetry in many languages, scored for voice and piano. The NEC Liederabend series presents songs in a variety of languages—not only German—dating from the 19th century up to the present day.

This is an in-person event with a private stream available to the NEC community here: https://necmusic.edu/live.