238. Schubert’s Swan Songs

The Concert - Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Works by Schubert for voice and piano performed by Mark Padmore, with Jonathan Biss on October 12, 2014 and for solo piano performed by Charlie Albright on September 29, 2013.

• Schubert: Ständchen from Schwanengesang
• Schubert: Sonata in A Major, D. 959

In 1828, as Schubert’s health was rapidly deteriorating, the composer entered a period of phenomenal compositional productivity. In the final months of his life, he would write many works that were published posthumously and recognized to be among his finest achievements. Two sets stand out as particularly notable: his final three piano sonatas, and Schwanengesang, a cycle of songs whose title translates as “Swan Song.”

We’ll hear one of the piano sonatas on this podcast–number 959, the sonata in A Major, performed by Charlie Albright. Schubert set out to write this sonata, and the other two in the set, shortly after the death of Beethoven, who had long cast a formidable shadow over the genre. The finale pays tribute to Beethoven, with a nod to the final movement of his 16th piano sonata.

Before the sonata, we’ll hear a song from the Schwanengesang cycle: “Staendchen,” or serenade. The singer implores his beloved to join him in the grove at nighttime, amidst the rustling leaves. There is an undertone of foreboding, though, as he alludes to the pain of love and the prying eyes of others.