Sunday, January 29, 2017

Sadness medicated to extinction: Schubertiade 2017


"Chicago is the best Village with grand tall buildings": Cockroach Catcher.

©2016 Am Ang Zhang


This is because of all the “villagey” happenings here.


This year is the 13th Schubertiade. This was the continuation of a tradition “re-started” by Thomas Zoells, Founder/Executive Director of the Chicago PianoForte Foundation some 13 years ago to mark the birthday of Franz Schubert every year.

Seven years ago I heard one of the singers said. Her theory is that nowadays people are so uncomfortable with sadness that German romantic poets and the characters they wrote about would have been medicated out.

Live streaming now:  http://www.pianofortestudios.tv/

Yes, there is so much sadness and melancholy and suffering in the Goethe poems which Schubert set to song. It is of course a form of sublimation and in psychiatry most would agree it is also the best psychological defense mechanism.


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