Event info

Saturday, 24 June
20.00, Norðurljós, Harpa
Fantasies from old and new Vienna

Franz Schubert: Notturno
Leonid Desyatnikov: Wie der Alte Leiermann
Schubert: Quartetsatz
Schubert: Fantasy in F minor
Arnold Schoenberg: Phantasy for violin and piano
Schubert: Fantasie for violin and piano

Rosanne Philippens (fiðla), István Várdai (selló), Víkingur Ólafsson (píanó), Maxim Rysanov (víóla), Nicolas Altstaedt (selló), Vilde Frang (fiðla)

This concert features the music of Vienna, particularly that of Franz Schubert and Arnold Schoenberg, two very different composers who greatly influenced the development of music in the West. We hear Schubert's captivating Nocturne for piano trio, Desyatniov's fantasy on the final lied of Schubert's song cycle Winterreise, the magnificent but unfinished string quartet Quartettsatz and one of Schubert's best-loved compositions for piano, the Fantasy in f-minor for four hands. Finally, we compare two fantasies for violin and piano, that of Franz Schubert and that of Arnold Schoenberg. At first glance, these work seem to have very little in common. Schubert wrote his Fantasie in 1827, a year before his death, and based it on his passionate lied Sei mir gegrüsst. Such emotion seems far off in Schoenberg's Phantasy, premiered in California in 1949, as this pioneer of the 12-tone system had done all he could to sever his musical ties to Old Europe. Upon closer inspection, the two works do share a common thread: The very hallmark of the fantasy, a true freedom of imagination.