Steve Davislim, the renowned operatic tenor, passed away “after a prolonged illness” last Sunday, August 11. He was 57. Born in Malaysia to a Chinese father and Irish mother, Davislim moved with his family to Australia shortly after birth. In later years, he settled in Vienna, Austria. In a statement, Davislim’s manager wrote, Steve was a man of great humanity and keen intellect who possessed a voice of rare beauty and facility. …
Franz Schubert composed a set of eight solo piano Impromptus (D. 899 and D. 935) in the summer and autumn of 1827, months before the creation of his Winterreise song cycle, and a year before his death at the age of 31. The title, suggesting an improvisatory character piece in three-part form (A-B-A) was chosen by Schubert’s Viennese publisher, Tobias Haslinger. Long before recordings, at a time when pianos were becoming increasingly inexpensive …
Franz Schubert completed the String Quintet in C Major in the late summer of 1828, less than two months before his death at the age of 31. Sublime and valedictory, it is music which inhabits mysterious and celestial spaces. It achieves the “heavenly lengths” (Robert Schumann’s words) of Schubert’s “Great” Symphony No. 9 in C Major, which was finished two years earlier. We get a sense of the monumental expanse of Bruckner …
1815 has been called Franz Schubert’s “miracle year.” In those twelve months, while working as a full-time schoolteacher, the 18-year-old composer wrote more than 20,000 bars of music. Among other works, he completed two symphonies (Nos. 2 and 3), two masses, a string quartet, two piano sonatas, and 145 songs (including the famous Erlkönig). Schubert’s biweekly composition lessons with Antonio Salieri during this period remind us that, even for the most intuitive …
The great Romanian pianist, Radu Lupu, passed away earlier this week. According to his manager, Lupu “died peacefully in his home in Switzerland from numerous long-term illnesses.” He was 76 years old. In 1966, Radu Lupu was awarded the first prize at the second Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He went on to win first prizes at the George Enescu International Piano Competition and the Leeds International Piano Competition. Lupu’s playing was filled …
“The opening movement of the Sonata [No. 21] in B-flat Major goes beyond analysis,” writes the pianist Stephen Hough. “It is one of those occasions when the pen has to be set down on the desk, the body rested against the back of a chair, and a listener’s whole being surrendered to another sphere.” This was Franz Schubert’s last instrumental work. Completed in the autumn of 1828 during the final months of …
In March of 1827, the biographer Anton Schindler brought a stack of Franz Schubert’s lieder to Beethoven’s deathbed in an attempt to comfort the ailing composer. Schindler recounted that after studying the songs, Beethoven commented, “Truly in Schubert there is the divine spark.” Schubert and Beethoven lived in Vienna at the same time. Yet, they traveled in different circles and their creative paths diverged widely. While Beethoven’s ferocious, revolutionary symphonies were shaking up the musical …