FRANZ SCHUBERT: DIE WINTERREISE - ZIMSKO POPOTOVANJE

Classical and Modern Music

Format: Digitalno

Code: 118913

EAN: 3838898118913

Franz Schubert: Winterreise

Franz Schubert: Winterreise The social and family circumstances of the Viennese suburbs, combined with a new way of perceiving musical and the experience of middle-class society, were decisive in shaping the personality, character and musical consciousness of Franz Schubert. By the age of 21, he had already gained a great deal of musical experience and had written numerous important scores. After resigning his post as a teaching assistant at his father’s home school, he made his way to Vienna to dedicate himself to music. There he encountered an environment that was new, insecure and – for such a young man – not very stimulating mentally. It was nevertheless this environment that formed his personality. Viennese society included musical/social gatherings in the homes of middle-class families, as well as musical gatherings – the so-called Schubertiades – in a small circle of friends and other artists. Schubert never drifted away from the clubs of painters, poets and musicians – especially singers – as well as somewhat ctitious patrons of the arts and literature, as is conrmed by the fact that his absences from Vienna were always short. His search for a conventional teaching post, however, never bore fruit, and he was even rejected for the position of music teacher in Ljubljana in 1816. Later, he was also frustrated in his eorts to gain work as an organist, failing to be elected to two important posts as Kapellmeister in Vienna. He rarely succeeded in his contacts with a variety of well-known musical publishers and only earned low fees for a few publications. Nor did he nd support among his wealthier friends, which meant that he was never able to solve his acute nancial problems. This situation, combined with an obsessive and assiduous approach to composition, a large numbers of performances and tough living conditions, resulted in an uncontrolled illness that very quickly damaged the composer’s weak constitution. Schubert lived most of his life in the centre of Vienna, yet never met the admired Ludwig van Beethoven. It was only shortly before his death that Beethoven perused some of Schubert’s songs with great enthusiasm. Around that time, some friends invited Schubert to visit the great composer with them, but a few days later Schubert was attending Beethoven’s funeral ceremony. He too died a year later and, in accordance with his wishes, was buried in the same cemetery near Beethoven’s grave. 6 In the winter of 1828, Schubert proposed to the Schott publishing house in Mainz that they publish some of his compositions and a list of his works. In his letter, he emphasised his most important achievements, including symphonies, masses and operas, which should have lent even greater artistic value to the material he had sent. At that time, masses, symphonies and operas were regarded as crucial for the assessment of a composer’s work. Although Schubert’s more Romantic artistic belief made him feel closer to miniature musical forms, he liked to emphasise his masterpieces for larger ensembles. He was right to point out their value, despite the fact that nowadays we are more attracted to his piano and chamber music, as well as to various choral works. Schubert’s compositional work is inseparably connected to the development of lieder for voice and piano, which incorporate both lyrics and music. More than 600 lieder can be found in all periods of his life, as he produced them from his early adolescent years to just a few weeks before his death. Close relationships with many poets and singers gave Schubert considerable creative impulses. He yearned for a response from Goethe, but the poet did not even bother replying to the manuscripts the composer sent him. A comprehensive survey of Schubert’s work shows that his vocal music was inspired by long preliminary consideration of the poems he set. Constant contact with artistically selected verses enabled Schubert to compose larger lyrical concatenations inspired by the musical dimension: he combined poems with a truly dramatic setting. He turned to poems by Wilhelm Müller on two occasions. Five years after nishing Die schöne Müllerin, a romantic story of unhappy love and scenes from nature, he composed Winterreise the year before his death. In all 24 songs, Schubert identied the musical narrative with a sense of resignation derived from the verses. The individually coloured stories were adapted to a fatal situation without hope of redemption. The singer, the narrator and the pianist were always sensitively balanced. The rare ashes of joy in some of the songs of Winterreise do not alter the predominantly pessimistic tone. They serve merely as ancient, gentle memories of a sad artist confronting the questions faced by someone who is dying. Schubert invited his friends to the performance of the songs, which he said pleased him “more than any until now ...”. - Tomaž Faganel, Translated by Ambrož Bajec-Lapanje

Marcos Fink

Bass-baritone Marcos Fink, born to Slovenian parents in Buenos Aires, first sang as a member of the Karantania Youth Choir and later joined the Argentine Polyphonic Choir. He studied with professors Ivan Ivanov and Victor Srugo, and later trained repertoire with various European masters (Schöne, Huttenlocker, Baldin, Werba, Harper, Sutherland). In 1990, he made his opera debut in Salzburg. He has performed in operas, concerts and solo recitals all over the world (Paris, Bordeaux, Frankfurt, Berlin, Barcelona, Madrid, Vienna, Amsterdam, Brussels, Tokyo, Osaka, Beijing, Shanghai, Ljubljana, Milan, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Houston, Sydney, Seoul, Geneva, etc.), under the baton of distinguished conductors (Corboz, Graf, Hager, Lombard, Bychkov, Horvat, Steinberg, Nanut, Shambadal, Lajovic, Jacobs, etc.) and with excellent orchestras (Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre national de France, the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, Concerto Köln, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Freiburger Barockorchester, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, etc.). Marcos Fink has participated in the recording of many albums with works by Puccini, Haydn, Bach, Mozart, Martin, Rossini, Fauré, Marxsen, Handel, Schumann, Schubert, Guastavino, Lebič, Wolf, etc. In 1998, he received the Golden Orpheus Award of the Académie du disque lyrique in Paris for his recording of Schubert’s cycle Winterreise. A recording of Mozart’s The Magic Flute on which he sings the role of Sarastro won a BBC Music Award, and the albums Canciones argentinas and Handel’s Agrippina (Claudio) were both nominated for a Grammy Award. He is a two-time recipient of the Slovenia’s prestigious Prešeren Fund Prize: in 1999, for his achievements in chamber music, especially for the performance of the song cycle Schwanengesang by Franz Schubert, and in 2013, together with his sister, mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink, for the album Slovenija!, a compilation of Slovenian lieder. In 2017, he received the Samo Smrkolj Award, which is awarded by the Slovenian Chamber Music Theatre for artistic achievements in the field of opera. In 2022, together with his sister Bernarda, he received the national award of Slovenia, the Silver Order of Merit, for achievements in the field of music.

More: www.marcosfink.si

Nataša Valant

Pianist Nataša Valant studied in Ljubljana with Prof. Vera Zupančič-Kralj and Prof. Zorka Bradač (piano), as well as with Prof. Jelica Portograndi (harp). At the Ljubljana Academy of Music, she studied with Prof. Hilda Horak. She also attended summer piano lessons in Salzburg with maestro Carlo Zecchi. From a very early age, she became familiar with vocal and vocal-instrumental music through playing the organ at the Church of St James in Ljubljana, and she served as an accompanist for the Consortium musicum for many years after it was founded in 1968. Until 1991, Nataša Valant was an accompanist and harpist at the Opera of the Slovenian National Theatre in Ljubljana, and then, until 2002, she worked as a pianist for the Slovenian Chamber Choir. She currently works as a freelancer artist. Nataša Valant performs as a concert pianist and an accompanist for Slovenia’s leading vocal soloists, appearing on a range of domestic and foreign concert stages. She has recorded a great deal of repertoire in the field of solo singing for the archives of Radio Slovenia, and the RTV Slovenia record label has released approximately 14 albums on which she accompanies Slovenian vocal soloists (Ana Pusar-Jerič, Bernarda Fink, Irena Baar, Mirjam Kalin, Dragica Kovačič, Veronika Fink, Marcos Fink, Andreja Zakonjšek, Marjan Trček, Branko Robinšak). Nataša Valant and Marcos Fink received Slovenia’s prestigious Prešeren Fund Prize for their recordings of Franz Schubert’s cycles, while their recording of Winterreise in the Slovenian language won the Golden Orpheus Award for interpretation in Paris. On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Slovenian Philharmonic, Nataša Valant received recognition for her musical activities within this institution.