Our Annual Schubertiade: Schubert and Beethoven: Influences and Homages

Allisanne Apple, mezzo soprano

Jennifer D’Agostino, soprano

Jamie Rose Guarrine, soprano

Karl Knapp, cello

Daniel O’Dea, tenor

Michael Roemer, baritone

And the PRO ARTE STRING QUARTET (playing movements from Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 131),

with pianists Martha Fischer and Bill Lutes

Please join us for a pre-concert lecture at 2:15 by Professor of Musicology Margaret Butler in the Rehearsal Hall of the Hamel Music Center.

On January 26, 2019 our (pianists Martha Fischer and Bill Lutes) 7th Annual Schubertiade at UW Madison’s new Hamel Music Center will be (for the first time!) a hyphenated program: Schubert and Beethoven, as we begin the many observances of the Beethoven 250th anniversary. These two immortals lived near each other in Vienna, and it is possible that they met, though no definitive documentation of such a meeting survives. What is certain is that the younger Schubert was hugely impacted by Beethoven’s music and his stature, and in his own way took the older composer’s work as an inspiration and a challenge. Even in the field of song, in which Schubert first achieved unique brilliance and a modicum of fame, Beethoven was also an important pioneer of the lied and in 1816 wrote what is considered to be the first true song cycle: An die ferne Geliebte (included on our program). Schubert followed with his own great cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, but also found inspiration in Beethoven’s chamber music and symphonic works.

We will include songs by both composers, in some cases pairing and comparing their settings of the same poem, as well as a set of 4-hand variations that Schubert dedicated to Beethoven, and other works demonstrating Beethoven’s profound impact on his younger colleague. The program will end with the Pro Arte Quartet playing final movements of Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 131 that Schubert asked to hear performed as he lay dying.

On January 26, 2019 our (pianists Martha Fischer and Bill Lutes) 7th Annual Schubertiade at UW Madison’s new Hamel Music Center will be (for the first time!) a hyphenated program: Schubert and Beethoven, as we begin the many observances of the Beethoven 250th anniversary. These two immortals lived near each other in Vienna, and it is possible that they met, though no definitive documentation of such a meeting survives. What is certain is that the younger Schubert was hugely impacted by Beethoven’s music and his stature, and in his own way took the older composer’s work as an inspiration and a challenge. Even in the field of song, in which Schubert first achieved unique brilliance and a modicum of fame, Beethoven was also an important pioneer of the lied and in 1816 wrote what is considered to be the first true song cycle: An die ferne Geliebte (included on our program). Schubert followed with his own great cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, but also found inspiration in Beethoven’s chamber music and symphonic works.

We will include songs by both composers, in some cases pairing and comparing their settings of the same poem, as well as a set of 4-hand variations that Schubert dedicated to Beethoven, and other works demonstrating Beethoven’s profound impact on his younger colleague. The program will end with the Pro Arte Quartet playing final movements of Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 131 that Schubert asked to hear performed as he lay dying.v