A Grammy Nominee and Mozart Competition Winner Revive Schubert’s Song Cycles
Grand Hall, Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre, the University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam 
Why We Recommend it
Franz Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise will be performed by tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Saskia Giorgini, two much-acclaimed musicians, in a special performance at HKU.
Description
Die schöne Müllerin (‘the Lovely Mill-maiden’) is regarded as one of the Viennese composer’s most important and admired works. It consists of 20 songs that tell the story of the tragic and unrequited love of a young journeyman for a beautiful young maiden.
Winterreise (‘Winter Journey’) is a song cycle composed of 24 songs for voice and piano. It follows a young wanderer who is suffering from lost love and solitude on his bleak journey through a sombre winter landscape. Winterreise mirrors Schubert’s own desolation and struggles in the final months of his brief life.
These two enduring classics, which are based on two works by German 18th-Century lyric poet Wilhelm Müller, will be performed by tenor Ian Bostridge. His numerous recordings have won major international prizes, including the CBE 2004 New Year’s Honours, and have earned him nominations for 15 Grammys. In 2016, Bostridge was awarded the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize for non-fiction writing for his latest book, Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession.
The piano part will be played by Italian-Dutch pianist Saskia Giorgini, who debuted at the Vienna Musikverein in February 2017 and was Winner of the 2016 Salzburg International Mozart Competition.
The performances will be companioned by the talk “Music in Words by Ian Bostridge” on 24 January 2019, moderated by Professor Daniel Chua, Chairperson at HKU’s Department of Music.
Details
When: 25 Jan 2019 - 26 Jan 2019 Where: Grand Hall, Lee Shau Kee Lecture Centre, the University of Hong Kong – Pokfulam
