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FULL SCHUBERT IN LIFE & SONGS 4 parts Documentary London 2021-2022 Graham Johnson
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: SCHUBERT IN LIFE & SONGS
- Composer: Schubert Franz
- Libretto: various
- Venue & Opera Company: Wigmore Hall, London, UK
- Recorded: 2021-2022
- Type: Other
- Singers: N/A
- Conductor:
- Orchestra: Graham Johnson, PIANO
- Stage Director:
- Costume Designer:
Information about the Recording
- Published by: Wigmore Hall
- Date Published: 2023
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, ensubs, gensubs
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
To mark the great composer’s birthday, we are delighted to share a new four-part video series exploring the life of Franz Schubert, presented by Graham Johnson (commissioned by John Gilhooly). Having engaged with Schubert’s music for over five decades as an internationally celebrated performer, scholar and author, Johnson offers unique insights into Schubert’s story, building a vivid and detailed picture of this incomparable composer.
In the first part of the series, Graham Johnson explores Franz Schubert’s early life in Vienna. Focusing here on the formative influences on Schubert’s musical development, Johnson delves into Schubert’s home life, the first concerts he experienced and his school years.
In the second episode of a landmark series about Schubert’s life, Graham Johnson looks at the great composer’s friendship with the poet Johann Baptist Mayrhofer. Mayrhofer was someone who instantly recognized Schubert’s musical genius, writing in his diary, “The fog of the present time will be lifted by listening to Schubert’s melodies”.
For the third part of Graham Johnson’s journey through Schubert’s life, he explores the years 1821 – 1824. In one of the happier periods of Schubert’s life, the composer has the freedom to live on his own as a result of income from his first published songs. These years are shaped by his friendship with Franz von Schober and culminate in the composition of Die schöne Müllerin in 1823, the first of Schubert’s epoch-making song cycles.
In the final installment of Graham Johnson’s account of Schubert’s story, we learn about the last four years of the composer’s life. This was a period of astonishing creativity before Schubert’s tragic death aged only 31, and we are left wondering what musical future there might have been, had Schubert not died so young.