CONCERT | PIANO RECITAL | HERBERT SCHUCH
In collaboration with the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Austrian Cultural Forum New York is pleased to present a recital by acclaimed Romanian-German pianist Herbert Schuch. At the forefront of his generation, Schuch interprets works by Thomas Larcher, Schumann, Mozart, and Schubert.
PROGRAM
Thomas Larcher Naunz
Schumann Theme and Variations in E-flat major for piano, WoO 24, (Geistervariationen)
Mozart Piano Sonata No.18 in D Major, K.576
Schubert Sonata for Piano No.21 in B-flat Major, D.960
The red thread that spins through the program is finality and, particularly, how the featured Austrian and German composers throughout various musical epochs have grappled with the awareness of their impending finitude: Robert Schumann’s Theme and Variations in E-flat Major for piano, WoO 24 (1854), also known as Spirit Variations, picks up on the composer’s physical deterioration due to a fatal nervous condition, and is influenced in part by a suicide attempt he made before the Variations were completed.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Sonata No.18 in D Major, K.576 (1789), is the composer’s last sonata, busy and vibrant, and far more demanding to play than Mozart suggested. In contrast, Franz Schubert’s Sonata for Piano No.21 in B-flat Major, D.960, completed in 1828 – two months before he died –, a tranquil, contemplative air dominates the two opening movements; characteristics one might expect from an artist pondering his impending death.
At first glance, Thomas Larcher’s early work Naunz (1989) seems the odd one out in Schuch’s program. However, the composition’s melancholy undertones make for a perfect opening piece of the evening.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Herbert Schuch (Photo by Felix Broede) was born in Temesvar (Romania) in 1979. After early piano lessons in his hometown, he emigrated with his family in 1988 to Germany. He continued his musical studies with Kurt Hantsch and then with Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In the recent past, Herbert Schuch has been particularly influenced by his encounters and work with Alfred Brendel. He attracted international attention when he won three important piano competitions – the Casagrande competition, the London International Piano Competition and the International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna – within the space of a single year.
Since then, he has worked with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Camerata Salzburg, Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Orchestre National de Lille, Dresdner Philharmonie, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Bamberger Symphoniker, the radio symphony orchestras of hr, MDR, WDR and NDR Hannover, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, and Düsseldorfer Symphoniker. His interest in chamber music, stimulated by his childhood training on the violin, is something he shares with such musicians as Adrian Brendel, Mirijam Contzen, Veronika Eberle, Julia Fischer, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Sebastian Klinger, Alina Pogostkin and Martin Spangenberg. Alongside his concert work, Herbert Schuch has been active for some time in the “Rhapsody in School” organization.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes: “The bright young Romanian-German pianist Herbert Schuch is building his career with marvelous consistency … His amazing technique is always in the service of intellectual penetration … Schuch masters the piercing rhythms and abrupt changes of meter with pianistic bravura.”
>> For more information, please visit www.herbertschuch.com
VENUE
ACFNY