Rubén Fernández Aguirre & Vanessa Goikoetxea

Soprano Vanessa Goikoetxea and pianist Rubén Fernández Aguirre present a recital that invites us to explore the lesser-known paths of Lied history, with the poetry of Heinrich Heine as its guiding thread. One of the most influential voices of German Romanticism, Heine was also a figure shaped by displacement and uprootedness. Of Jewish origin and exiled in Paris during the final years of his life, Heine transformed nostalgia, irony, and the search for belonging into some of the central themes of his work. At the heart of the programme are the Lieder Op. 16 by Andrés Isasi, a composer from Bilbao who trained in Berlin in the years preceding the First World War. Removed from the prevailing nationalist currents in Spain at the time, Isasi found his main aesthetic reference in the German tradition, forging a distinctive voice between two cultures. Alongside his songs, works by composers from diverse backgrounds reveal the extent to which Heine’s poetry crossed borders and languages.