Schubertreise XXXVI

Conor Biggs, bass-baritone
Michel Stas, piano

Settings of texts by Ernst Schulze:
An Mein Herz (first setting), D860
Der liebliche Stern, D861
Totengräber-Weise, D869
Im Jänner, D876
Lebensmut, D883

Settings of texts by William Shakespeare:
Trinklied, D75
Ständchen, D889

Setting of text by Georg Friedrich Müller von Gerstenbergk
previously attributed to Johanna Schopenhauer
Hippolits Lied, D890

Literally translated as ‘Schubert journey’ the National Concert Hall presents ‘Schubertreise’. Dublin-born bass-baritone, Conor Biggs, and Belgian pianist, Michel Stas, have taken on the monumental challenge of performing the complete songs of Schubert in this thirty-seven part series taking place over fifteen years.

For this, their penultimate recital, the pair will be performing the remaining songs in this massive project. With the exception of Winterreise, to be performed in their last recital, they will have covered every single Schubert song, excluding songs which were never completed and certain songs with instrumental or choral accompaniment.

Fittingly, the first song in this recital is An Mein Herz, the first of a group of four settings to texts by Ernst Schulze, which in style and sentiment foreshadows Winterreise.

Schubert was rarely unmoved by water, the moon and the stars, and Der liebliche Stern, with its delightful swaying accompaniment and major-minor juxtapositions, is one of the best of the ‘star’ songs.

Totengräber-Weise is one of Schubert’s most beautiful meditations on death, combining rigid symmetry with extraordinary lyricism, particularly in the piano interludes. Im Jänner 1817 portrays lonely defiance, and would not be out of place in Winterreise. The last of the Schulze settings, Lebensmut, overflows with optimism, and incorporates scintillating piano writing undeniably influenced by the sonatas as well as the German dances. The epigrammatic Trinklied, a setting of Shakespeare’s drinking song in Anthony and Cleopatra is short and cheerful. The second Shakespeare setting in the programme, Ständchen, is taken from Cymbeline; its irresistible lilt has made it deservedly famous. Finally, Hippolits Lied, whose plaintive, mordant-rich melody is sung by the outcast Hippolitus (son of Theseus and Hippolyta, and the subject of a play by Euripides), foreshadowing Der Wegweiser in Winterreise.

Having run out of Schubert songs to perform, Michel Stas and Conor Biggs have decided against choosing some of their favourite Schubert songs (the choice would be too subjective), opting instead for a very different repertoire, one that is close to Conor Biggs’s heart.

Presented by NCH