The Parlour presents Art Song in a semi-staged recital form incorporating text and dialogue aimed at allowing the audience to be immersed in the place and time of the music. Characters from a composer’s inner circle of friends and family tell the story of their lives and circumstances as a backdrop to the songs. Often these characters have been hidden in the background of standard biographies but with careful detective work, The Parlour brings them centre stage to shine a light into the shadowy corners.
In 2018, we set up our ‘salon’ at Melbourne Recital Centre. In two separate concerts, we will explore Liszt and Chopin from the view of their lovers, female benefactors and muses.
The Parlour is passionate about unearthing the intentions behind Art Song compositions, exposing the people and events that inspired them, and creating a meaningful connection for a 21st Century audience. In particular, through the women who were both creators and enablers of Art, we are given an exclusive window into the intimate machinations of the nineteenth-century Salon.
Art Songs, Lieder, Mélodie, Piosenki – songs of any language and culture are windows into the desires, neuroses and ego of a composer. For too long, this art form has been presented in isolation from its origins and context. As such, it has lost relevance and risks disappearing into obscurity. We urge you to join with us in preserving and reinvigorating this genre..
Salons, drawing-rooms and lounges were once considered legitimate performance venues with a wealth of compellingly intimate and personal compositions created for them replete with secret messages to decode!
Your support enables The Parlour to research and recreate the romance and intrigue of the nineteenth-century Salon. Who knows what might be exposed?
