Schubert Revealed I

The concept of fantasy took the artistic world by storm during the 19th century, and no one expressed the idea better than Franz Schubert, whose music ushered in the age of Romanticism. In a program that closely links Schubert’s genius in the art song genre with his memorable chamber works, we will hear how intrinsic the vocal line was to Schubert’s thinking, as well as experience a poetic imagination second to none.

PROGRAM

LAUREN DECKER, contralto

GILLES VONSATTEL, piano

WU HAN, piano

BENJAMIN BEILMAN, violin

 

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

Fantasie in F minor for Piano, Four Hands, D. 940, Op. 103 (1828)

WU HAN, VONSATTEL

Schubert

“Dass sie hier gewesen” for Voice and Piano, D. 775, Op. 59, No. 2 (1823)

DECKER, WU HAN

Schubert

“Sei mir gegrüsst” for Voice and Piano, D. 741, Op. 20, No. 1 (1822)

DECKER, WU HAN

Schubert

“Auflösung” for Voice and Piano, D. 807 (1824)

DECKER, WU HAN

Schubert

Fantasie in C major for Piano, D. 760, “Wanderer Fantasy” (1822)

VONSATTEL

 

INTERMISSION

Schubert

“Der Wanderer” for Voice and Piano, D. 489 (1816)

DECKER, WU HAN

 

Schubert

“Gondelfahrer” for Voice and Piano, D. 808 (1824)

DECKER, WU HAN

Schubert

“Abendstern” for Voice and Piano, D. 806 (1824)

DECKER, WU HAN

Schubert

Fantasy in C major for Violin and Piano, D. 934, Op. 159 (1827)

BEILMAN, VONSATTEL

 

PERFORMERS

Violinist Benjamin Beilman has won praise both for his passionate performances and deep, rich tone, which the Washington Post called “mightily impressive,” and the New York Times described as “muscular with a glint of violence.” His 2022–23 season includes debuts with the Trondheim Symphony, Hamburg Symphoniker, Oslo Philharmonic, and Taipei Symphony. He will also return to the Detroit Symphony and tour across Australasia, appearing with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Tasmania Symphony. In recital, he will premiere a work by Gabriella Smith at the Schubert Club in St. Paul and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In April 2022, he became one of the youngest artists to join the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music. He has performed with major orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Zurich Tonhalle, Sydney Symphony, Houston Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestra. He performs regularly at major halls across the world, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Kölner Philharmonie, Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Louvre, and Bunka Kaikan, and at festivals such as Verbier, Music@Menlo, Marlboro, and Seattle Chamber Music. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, Beilman studied at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Kronberg Academy (with Christian Tetzlaff), and has received many prestigious accolades including a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and a London Music Masters Award. He plays the “Ysaÿe” Guarneri del Gesù (1740), generously on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.

Contralto Lauren Decker most recently appeared in several roles in David Pountney’s new Ring Cycle at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She made her Lyric Opera debut as Third Lady in Die Zauberflöte and went on to perform as Jade Boucher in Dead Man Walking, First Maid in Elektra, Inez in Il trovatore, Enrichetta di Francia in I puritani, and Annina in La traviata. Outside of the mainstage, Lauren was seen as Miss Todd in The Old Maid and the Thief at the Grant Park Music Festival. In summer 2019, she made a triumphant debut with the San Francisco Symphony in Elgar’s Sea Pictures. She has also performed in concert with the South Dakota Symphony, the Apollo Chorus/Elmhurst Symphony, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, and the Harare International Festival of the Arts in Zimbabwe. She is a recent recipient of the Richard F. Gold Career Grant and was a national semifinalist in the 2018 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Winner of the 2019 Edith Newfield Scholarship from the Musician’s Club of Women of Chicago and 2018 Lola Fletcher Scholarship in Voice with the American Opera Society of Chicago, she has been featured in the Harris Theater’s Beyond the Aria series alongside Christine Goerke, Eric Owens, Michael Fabiano, and Zachary Nelson. In addition to her four-year tenure at the Ryan Opera Center, Decker has participated in the Britten-Pears Program at Snape Maltings, United Kingdom, Dolora Zajick’s Institute for Young Dramatic Voices, the American Wagner Project (Washington, D.C.) and the Georg Solti Accademia di Bel Canto (Italy).

Swiss-born American pianist Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. He is the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions, and was selected for the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. He has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, San Francisco Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Detroit Symphony, Chicago Symphony, and Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg while performing recitals and chamber music at Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Lucerne Festival, Bravo! Vail, Chamber Music Northwest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and Music@Menlo. Deeply committed to the performance of contemporary music, he has premiered numerous works both in the United States and Europe and has worked closely with numerous notable composers including Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, Anthony Cheung, and George Benjamin. Recent projects include a performance of Carlos Chávez’s Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium with The Orchestra Now, a debut at Mostly Mozart, a critically acclaimed recording of music of Richard Strauss and Kurt Leimer with the Bern Symphony Orchestra and Mario Venzago for Schweizer Fonogramm, as well as multiple appearances with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. During the summer of 2022, Vonsattel appeared at seven of the United States’ most prestigious chamber music festivals. An alum of CMS’s Bowers Program, he received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from the Juilliard School. He currently makes his home in New York City. Vonsattel is Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and serves on the faculty of Bard College Conservatory of Music.

Pianist Wu Han, recipient of Musical America’s Musician of the Year Award, enjoys a multi-faceted musical life that encompasses artistic direction, performing, and recording at the highest levels. Co-Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004 as well as Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Silicon Valley’s innovative chamber music festival Music@Menlo since 2002, she also serves as Artistic Advisor for Wolf Trap’s Chamber Music at the Barns series and Palm Beach’s Society of the Four Arts, and as Artistic Director for La Musica in Sarasota, Florida. Her recent concert activities have taken her from New York’s Lincoln Center stages to the most important concert halls in the United States, Europe, and Asia. In addition to countless performances of virtually the entire chamber repertoire, her concerto performances include appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, and the Aspen Festival Orchestra. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of ArtistLed, classical music’s first artist-directed, internet-based recording label, which has released her performances of the staples of the cello-piano duo repertoire with cellist David Finckel. Her more than 80 releases on ArtistLed, CMS Live, and Music@Menlo LIVE include masterworks of the chamber repertoire with numerous distinguished musicians. Wu Han’s educational activities include overseeing CMS’s Bowers Program and the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo. A recipient of the prestigious Andrew Wolf Award, she was mentored by some of the greatest pianists of our time, including Lilian Kallir, Rudolf Serkin, and Menahem Pressler. Married to cellist David Finckel since 1985, Wu Han divides her time between concert touring and residences in New York City and Westchester County.