Dear Schubertiade YYC subscribers,

So here we are at July, and May and June have whizzed by, being very busy in my personal life. But we have the months of summer ahead of us where practicing, nay, playing with, some Schubert can beckon.

Practicing is important. But very often it becomes a quest to fix all of the mistakes, and we stop seeing the forest for the trees, stop hearing the beauty of the music for the errors in it. A midi player makes no mistakes in pitch or rhythm, but we don’t go to concerts of midi players. In today’s world where large companies want to replace humans with AI as much as possible to justify how much they spent on the AI, it is more important than ever to be human.

A reminder that I would like sign ups with your repertoire by October 1, but the pieces do not have to be perfect by then. Pick a few Schubert pieces over the summer, maybe ones you’ve played before or ones that you’ve always wanted to play, and fall in love with them all over again.

Recently, I have fallen in love with Schubert’s “Suleika I (Was bedeutet die Bewegung),” D. 720. Here is a discussion of the text and its history https://www.schubertsong.uk/text/suleika-i/ At the time of setting the poems in the Westostlicher Divan that both the texts “Suleika I” and “Suleika II” appear in, Schubert thought the poems were all written by Goethe, but the two Suleika poems were actually written by a woman, Goethe’s friend Marianne von Willemer. Suleika I is addressed to the East Wind, and Suleika II to the West Wind. Suleika II is D. 717 in Schubert’s catalogue; he had set it earlier, though Marianne von Willemer had written it later.

Here is Anne-Sofie von Otter’s beautiful rendition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGVg0-CiFQ

And another anecdote from Schubert’s own life:

“In the winter of 1827, on a visit to Vienna with his teacher Hummel, Ferdinand Hiller heard Michael Vogl sing Schubert songs with the composer as accompanist. The sixteen-year-old Hiller watched in astonishment as Hummel, ‘with half a century of music behind him,’ wept openly throughout the recital. Determined to meet the unknown composer, Hiller next morning searched him out in his sparsely-furnished rooms. When he entered, Schubert was working, standing up beside a broad, high desk. ‘You compose a great deal,’ exclaimed Hiller, seeing mounds of fresh manuscript scattered around. ‘I compose every morning,’ replied Schubert seriously. ‘When one piece is finished, I begin another.’ “
— The Book of Musical Anecdotes

If the original piece that you chose to practice isn’t working for you, summer is the time to explore another!

Till next time,

Schubertiade YYC