A recital featuring Bass-Baritone Chad Louwerse and Pianist Stéphane Mayer performing Schubert's Schwanengesang and the Wolf Michelangelo Lieder.

Schubert's last group of songs is called Schwanengesang or Swan Song.  Strictly speaking, it's not really a song cycle as a cycle of songs typically features poems that are linked together thematically, by poet, or by narrative and are meant to be performed together as a single work, much like Schubert's Winterreise or Die schöne Müllerin.  These 14 songs, however, are unified in that they showcase the full development of Schubert's compositional powers in his most prolific medium, the Lied or art song.  Also, they favour the lower voice whereas his other cycles are better suited for higher voice types. Featuring the poems of Heine, Rellstab, and Seidl, this remarkable cycle is thematically wide-ranging and emotionally evocative.

The Wolf Michelangelo Lieder are a cycle of three songs with poems written by the great artist Michelangelo.  These are the last three poems that Wolf set to music.  They range from being deeply philosophical to exultant to playfully romantic and they spin a lavish, lush musical landscape.  Like the Schwanengesang, they are written for the lower voice.

Please join Chad and Stéphane Mayer for this wonderful concert.  

UWO von Kuster Hall

Free admission

Sung in German with English translations provided.