Dream and Reality
Don Quixote is a dreamer, an idealist.
He steps out of the real world and creates a new reality. A farmer’s daughter becomes a stunningly beautiful princess, the inn becomes a castle, the stocky neighbour turns into Squire Sancho Panza, a skinny farmer’s nag becomes a noble racehorse and Alonso Quixano turns into Don Quixote de la Mancha! Fully believing in himself and his dream turned reality, the nobleman goes in pursuit of love and wages war to make the world a fairer and more beautiful place.
A fool or an inspiring hero?
It is becoming increasingly harder to dream in a society where almost everything is within reach, where desires are quickly fulfilled, where anything abnormal or unknown has no purpose and where unknown worlds can be discovered from your computer.
Just sometimes I long for the pre-internet era where dreams could not be realised at the click of a mouse; a time when the unknown still awakened curiosity and longing.
When Shostakovich hears a Spanish folk melody he starts to fantasize like an errant old knight, thereby escaping the bitter reality of the Stalinist regime and taking us with him to his idealistic Spain.
Don Quixote says, ‘Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has given man, no treasures hidden in the earth or concealed by the sea can compare with it.’
Shostakovich finds freedom in his music just as the well-known German folk song says: Thoughts are free.
Dørumsgaard, Albéniz, Granados, Ravel and Ibert also present their dream vision of Spain. The latter two sketch a portrait of the sorrowful knight himself. They could not help themselves. ‘I did not seek him, he sought me’, Ibert said of him.
I hope that this album allows you to dream for a while and escape your everyday reality, just as Don Quixote did for Sancho Panza.
Dream and Reality
Don Quixote is a dreamer, an idealist.
He steps out of the real world and creates a new reality. A farmer’s daughter becomes a stunningly beautiful princess, the inn becomes a castle, the stocky neighbour turns into Squire Sancho Panza, a skinny farmer’s nag becomes a noble racehorse and Alonso Quixano turns into Don Quixote de la Mancha! Fully believing in himself and his dream turned reality, the nobleman goes in pursuit of love and wages war to make the world a fairer and more beautiful place.
A fool or an inspiring hero?
It is becoming increasingly harder to dream in a society where almost everything is within reach, where desires are quickly fulfilled, where anything abnormal or unknown has no purpose and where unknown worlds can be discovered from your computer.
Just sometimes I long for the pre-internet era where dreams could not be realised at the click of a mouse; a time when the unknown still awakened curiosity and longing.
When Shostakovich hears a Spanish folk melody he starts to fantasize like an errant old knight, thereby escaping the bitter reality of the Stalinist regime and taking us with him to his idealistic Spain.
Don Quixote says, ‘Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has given man, no treasures hidden in the earth or concealed by the sea can compare with it.’
Shostakovich finds freedom in his music just as the well-known German folk song says: Thoughts are free.
Dørumsgaard, Albéniz, Granados, Ravel and Ibert also present their dream vision of Spain. The latter two sketch a portrait of the sorrowful knight himself. They could not help themselves. ‘I did not seek him, he sought me’, Ibert said of him.
I hope that this album allows you to dream for a while and escape your everyday reality, just as Don Quixote did for Sancho Panza.
Henk Neven
My Wish List
Available only as a playable CDR
