Lied at the Alhambra

Artists

Florian Boesch, baritone

Malcolm Martineau, piano

Programme

Schubertiada I

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Schwanengesang, D 957 (Swan Song. 1828)

Concert with no interval

Swan Song

Franz Schubert passed away on November 19, 1828 at the young age of 31, leaving on his desk various projects and unfinished works, as well as a set of songs that he had been working on in the last weeks of his life. Although it does not appear that the composer intended to use them for a new cycle, his brother Ferdinand and editor Haslinger published them in 1829 in two notebooks under the title Swan Song. The collection, which does not have the narrative thread of the other two great cycles of the composer, consisted of seven pieces on poems by Ludwig Rellstab and six on texts by Heinrich Heine. It is said that to avoid the superstition of the number thirteen, Haslinger added Taubenpost, on a poem by Johann Gabriel Seidl, certainly the last lied that came out of the hand of the Viennese genius. This extraordinary series of Lied at the Alhambra is opened by the Austrian baritone and great liederist Florian Boesch.