Ravinia 2022, Issue 3

Moritz von Schwind’s Schubertiade (1868) MARTIN THEATRE 7:30 PM TUESDAY, JULY 26, 2022 MATTHIAS GOERNE, baritone ALEXANDRE KANTOROW, piano † SCHUBERT Der Wanderer Wehmut * Der Jüngling und der Tod Fahrt zum Hades * Schatzgräbers Begehr * Grenzen der Menschheit * Das Heimweh * Gesänge des Harfners Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt (Harfenspieler I) Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß (Harfenspieler III) An die Türen will ich schleichen (Harfenspieler II) Pilgerweise * Des Fischers Liebesglück * Der Winterabend Abendstern Die Sommernacht * Der liebliche Stern * There will be no intermission in this program. † Ravinia debut * First performance at Ravinia FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797–1828) Lieder Changing political, economic, and social con- ditions in early-19th-century Vienna spawned new opportunities for young artists like the diminutive, bespectacled Franz Schubert. De- cades of military conflict—Austria sided with Russia in its war against the Ottoman Empire and immediately thereafter struggled to repel French forces under Napoleon—had weak- ened the Habsburg Empire and drained the finances of its nobility. Ludwig van Beetho- ven, the dominant musician of the day, bene- fited in no small part from the established, but rapidly disintegrating, musical order sus- tained by aristocratic philanthropy. However, even he recognized the changing nature of patronage and aggressively pursued addition- al income from printed music. Schubert’s music appealed to a rising middle class of musical consumers, mostly younger and nourished on a steady diet of Romantic literature and art. His German songs for solo voice with piano accompaniment particularly Franz Schubert communicated to this new generation via their sophisticated yet simple musical lan- guage and approachable yet inexhaustibly rich poeticism. Schubert did not invent the Lied, a term first applied to the poetry and later to its musical settings. That honor belongs to several previous generations of German—plus a much smaller number of Austrian—composers. Nor did he pioneer the song cycle with Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise . Beethoven, if anyone, deserves that credit for An die ferne Geliebte . No, this humble son of a schoolteacher rose to the pantheon of Romantic composers by fusing music and poetry into a completely integrated art form. Sound derived its very substance from the rhythms, inflections, and characterizations in the text, while the poetry gained indefinable potency from its transfor- mation into music. Schubert turned verses of Romantic figure- heads like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich von Schiller, and German transla- tions of William Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott into vocal masterpieces. He also came to appreciate classic Italian poetry after stud- ies with Antonio Salieri. Lesser German po- ets such as Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Matthias Clau- dius, Johann Mayrhofer, Wilhelm Müller, Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Rellstab, and Chris- tian Friedrich Daniel Schubart also stimu- lated his seemingly inexhaustible lyrical pow- ers, which produced several hundred Lieder before Schubert succumbed to death at age 31. Musicians and musical connoisseurs quickly realized the great void left by the death of this unique Vienna-born artist. Robert Schumann openly admired the “thousand shapes of mankind’s thoughts and aspirations” ex- pressed in his songs. The importance of his Lieder was not lost on Franz Liszt, who wrote: “In the short compass of a song, he makes us witness to brief but mortal conflicts.” Few RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 37