Saturday, October 13, 2007
8:00 p.m.
Mahaney Center for the Arts, Concert Hall
Christian Gerhaher, baritone
Gerold Huber, piano
Internationally-renowned baritone Christian Gerhaher has performed with some of classical music's greatest orchestras: Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic, Mstislav Rostropovich and the Vienna Philharmonic, Andras Schiff and the Philharmonia, Franz Welzer-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Gerhaher sang the role of Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte in the Salzburg Festival's celebration of Mozart's 250th birthday. But he is equally heralded as a recitalist, having sung repeatedly at London's Wigmore Hall, as well as at the Konzerthaus and Musikverein in Vienna, and Carnegie Hall in New York. He has made extraordinary recordings of all of Schubert's great song cycles, and of many of Robert Schumann's songs. At Middlebury he sings a program devoted to Robert Schumann.
Tickets: $15/12/5Tickets: $15/12/5. http://go.middlebury.edu/tickets or 802-443-MIDD (6433).
Program: (All Robert Schumann)
Selected lieder from Myrten, Op. 25
No. 2 Freisinn (Goethe)
No. 7 Die Lotosblume (Heine)
No. 17 Venetianisches Lied I (Moore)
No. 18 Venetianisches Lied II (Moore)
No. 24 Du bist wie eine Blume (Heine)
No. 25 Aus den östlichen Rosen (Rückert)
Liederkreis, Op. 39 (Eichendorff)
In der Fremde
Intermezzo
Waldesgespräch
Die Stille
Mondnacht
Schöne Fremde
Auf einer Burg
In der Fremde
Wehmut
Zwielicht
Im Walde
Frühlingsnacht
Intermission
Selected lieder from Fünf Lieder, Op. 40 (Andersen)
No. 1 Märzveilchen
No. 2 Muttertraum
No. 3 Der Soldat
No. 4 Der Spielmann
No. 5 Verratene Liebe
Melancholie Op. 74. No. 6 (Geibel)
Tief im Herzen trag ich Pein Op. 138 No. 2 (Geibel)
Der Einsiedler Op. 83 No. 3 (Eichendorff)
Der arme Peter Op. 53, No. 3 (Heine)
I. Der Hans und die Grete tanzen herum
II. In meiner Brust, da sitzt ein Weh
III. Der Arme Peter wankt vorbei
Belsatzar Op. 57 (Heine)
For additional program notes, please contact Events and Residency Manager Allison Coyne Carroll at carroll@middlebury.edu
Artist Biographies:
CHRISTIAN GERHAHER, Baritone
Baritone Christian Gerhaher returns to North America in the 2007/2008 season for a recital tour with pianist Gerold Huber appearing at the Tuesday Evening Concert Series in Charlottesville, VA; the Vocal Arts Society in Washington, DC; the Middlebury College Performing Arts Series in Vermont; The André Turp Musical Society in Montreal; Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall; and the Yale University School of Music where he and Mr. Huber will also conduct master classes.
Other 07/08 highlights include the title role in Monterverdi's Orfeo with the Frankfurt Opera; a tour of the Britten War Requiem with the International Bach Akadamie and Helmuth Rilling and with the Munich Philharmonic and James Conlon; an appearance at Wigmore Hall for William Lyne's 75th Birthday Celebration, followed later in the season by a solo recital; appearances in the Far East, including Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Herbert Blomstedt and the NHK Symphony in Tokyo, Nagoya and Okayama; Schubert's Die Schöne Mullerin, Die Wintereisse and Schwanegesang in Tokyo and Nagoya. Mr. Gerhaher also appears with Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra for Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn in Leipzig, Florence and Vienna.
His many recitals during the season will include dates in Amsterdam, Berlin, Madrid, Essen, and Brussells, among others.
Milestones of his concert career include his collaborations with Helmuth Rilling and the Bachakademie Stuttgart, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Sir Neville Marriner, Philippe Herreweghe, Heinz Holliger and Trevor Pinnock, and early career debuts with the Vienna and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras. Recent highlights include the Brahms Requiem led by Kent Nagano with the Chicago Symphony for his debut and with the Munich Philharmonic and Christian Thielemann, Bach's Christmas Oratorio with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Musikverein, the Britten War Requiem with the Vienna Philharmonic. He has appeared at the Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana under Riccardo Muti, with whom he repeated this piece at the Vienna Philharmonic. He also performed and recorded this work with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, which was released on EMI. With the Berlin Philharmonic he has also performed the Britten War Requiem under Donald Runnicles, which was repeated at the Edinburgh Festival, and he made his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Nikolaus Harnoncourt with Dvorak's Biblical Songs.
Under exclusive contract with RCA Red Seal, Mr. Gerhaher's latest disc, Abendbilder, songs of Franz Schubert with Gerold Huber, was named the best solo vocal recording of 2006 by Gramophone Magazine.
GEROLD HUBER, Pianist
As a scholarship holder, German pianist Gerold Huber studied piano with Friedemann Berger and lied interpretation with Helmut Deutsch at the Musikhochschule in Munich and attended Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's lied classes in Berlin. 1998 he was awarded the Prix International Pro Musicis in Paris/New York together with baritone Christian Gerhaher that was followed by concerts in Paris and the Carnegie Hall in New York. He was a prize winner of the International Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Wettbewerb Saarbrücken in 2001.
"His sensitive interludes make you want to kneel down. The pianist uncovers the subtle network of a comedy of errors and completes the picture. Gerold Huber manages to penetrate into the deep layers of the soul." This is the press's enthusiastic judgement of Gerold Huber's way of accompanying. In the role of lied pianist, he already appeared at such renowned festivals as Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and Schubertiade Vilabertran (Spain), the Schwetzinger Festspiele and the Rheingau Musik Festival. Moreover, he founded his own festival 'Ernste Musik' which took place for the first time in Munich's Nymphenburg Castle in 2006.
Gerold Huber performed at major concert halls like Philharmonie Cologne, De Singel in Antwerp, Wigmore Hall in London, Frick Collection New York and Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Besides his regular appearances with Christian Gerhaher, Gerold Huber also performs with Ruth Ziesak, Cornelia Kallisch, Diana Damrau and Franz Josef Selig. Furthermore he is the pianist of the vocal ensemble Liedertafel, consisting of James Taylor, Christian Elsner, Michael Volle and Franz-Josef Selig, and he also performed with the Artemis Quartet.
His solo activities and recordings often center around the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. He has performed in Munich, Regensburg and at the Théâtre Municipal de Romains in France, at the Festival Kultursommer Kassel and at the New Zealand Festival in Wellington.
Gerold Huber is a regular guest of broadcasting companies for live and studio recordings. For Arte Nova, Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber have recorded all Schubert cycles. Other CDs with songs of Brahms and Martin have been released. For the label RCA Red Seal the duo recently published a CD with Schubert songs titled Abendbilder, which was honored with the Gramophone Award for Best Solo Vocal Recording 2006.
Artist Website(s):
Colbert Artists Managment
Sony/BMG Masterworks
Press Quotes:
Gerhaher's Schöne Müllerin is among the most penetrating and beautifully sung of recent years. --BBC Music Magazine
Gerhaher's performance comes across with such freshness and ardour. It is, quite simply, one of the finest recordings of this greatest of song cycles (and, no, I haven't forgotten Winterreise) to have been released on disc for years. --Andrew Clements, The Guardian, London
The baritone, Christian Gerhaher, is one of the remarkable new generation of German lieder-singers who have so strongly enriched the tradition carried to a peak by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
By any reckoning, these are among the very finest versions of each of the great cycles, with the singer's regular pianist, Gerold Huber, a comparably sensitive accompanist. Gerhaher's rendering of Die Schöne Müllerin is both youthfully fresh and finely detailed, exploiting the heady freedom of his voice at the top, while Winterreise is naturally darker, exploiting the widest range of tone and expression, with words exceptionally clear. Four Stars. --Edward Greenfield, The Guardian, London
You would wish for other singers to sing like Christian Gerhaher. --FonoForum