Rainer Maria Rilke is celebrating his 150th Birthday on the 4th of December and, without thinking about Birthday parties, I recorded an interview with the German-British composer Tom Lane. Enjoy listening to this amazing poem about music itself, set into music.

Working together can become a blessing for a composer as well as a singer. If creating is a form of being, it becomes a present to ourselves. Sabine Bergk talks with Michael Finnissy and Lotte Betts-Dean about the creative process, of truly becoming the composition and about the blessing of existing together through music.

Discovering British Art Song is like taking turns and twists in undulating landscapes. Sabine Bergk talks with James Gilchrist and Nathan Williamson about the variety of the songs of Thomas Pitfield, an exceptional composer, poet, painter and peace activist (1903-1999). In Pitfield's songs, the beauty of the moment shines through delicate lines of shadows and light. In many songs, the poem and the composition originate from the same feather - Pitfield worked as his own singer songwriter, ahead of the times.

It remains a mystery how music appears and comes alive. In his song cycle "Blessed be", Michael Finnissy explores sensitively twisting and turning lines, shifting between Music's ancient roots and the 'moment of Now'. Magic seems to arise everywhere, if we open up our senses. The performers in ‘Blessed be 1’ are Lotte Betts-Dean, Valerie Wellbanks ('cello) and Olga Stezhko (piano).

We celebrate the 2nd Birthday of "Lied can Fly" / "Lieder können fliegen"! More than 50 episodes were produced and we totally reached more than 44.000 downloads and streams. To support the podcast, you can become a premium member at the steady community: https://steadyhq.com/de/lieder-konnen-fliegen/about

The Birthday Premium Edition with selected songs of two years of "Lied can Fly" / "Lieder können fliegen" will be available exclusively for premium members. Join this special community and become a member now.

Music can be part of the most challenging moments in our lives. Light and darkness, birth and death - with her CD "Enigma", Sarah Aristidou created a panorama of sounds and musical landscapes of our soul. Sabine Bergk talks with Sarah Aristidou about the "Lamento Turco" by Andreas Tsiartas.

Complexity culminates into tragedy in Dostoevsky's masterpiece "The Idiot" - and it might be nearly impossible to set it into music. With the "The letters of Nastasya Filippovna", Sidney Corbett reduced the drama to a maximum of intensity and obsession. If love might never be possible - beauty always is.

Romantic poetry has been attracting many composers with its musical colours. In his "Wiegenlied", Moritz Eggert picked a poem by Clemens Brentano to dive deeply into the dark moments of romanticism. Sabine Bergk talks with Moritz about lullabies in turbulent times. We wish you a wonderful Christmas!

Bird song and art song are very close, even though birds know better than we do. Judith Weir talks with Sabine Bergk about the refreshing and optimistic power of music. Welcoming the day, as it is written in Robert Bridges poem "Nightingales" - that Judith set into music in her song cycle "The Voice of Desire" - might be close to welcoming every moment in Zen Buddhism. Just one moment or even one chord can be more than you would ever think, if you start exploring it.

Dedicated to an English friend in the Cotswolds, Torsten Rasch wrote a song during the pandemic to brighten him up in his isolated life. Sabine Bergk talks with Torsten Rasch about the power of music in rough times - and about the attractiveness of English culture.