Lizzie and Thomas are standing in for the previously advertised performance by pianist Bridget Yee who had to cancel at short notice.
Aufträge (Op. 77, Lieder und Gesänge)
Heiß mich nicht reden, heiß mich schweigen (D 726)
In der fremde (Liederkreis, Op. 39)
Wehmut (Liederkreis, Op. 39)
This song is as significant a piece in the third recueil as is Lydia, by the same poet, in the first. Leconte de Lisle’s ode (Poèmes et poésies) was already thirty-five years old, but the composer makes it sound almost as fresh as the day it was written. He clearly admired the gardener in this Parnasse whose roses from Isfahan and Lahore he also set. This prize-winning specimen however is from Delos, and it inspires Fauré to a very personal response; he relaxes the poet’s majestic and statuesque pose (très 1855) with music that remains fresh and natural, despite the mythological references. There are no separate strophes in this poem, and the composer only allows himself a brief piano interlude before the fourteenth line. Apart from this respite, voice and piano flower together in a texture that, if not exactly overgrown, signifies profusion and effulgence: this is no single rose but an overgrown hillside where the passer-by is overwhelmed by the flowers’ scent. Constantly changing harmonies (on a row of descending basses with mixolydian colourings) are meant to delight but, as in La bonne chanson, the ear is in danger of being unsettled by too much diversity; nevertheless, the listener’s attention is held by the freshness and impetus of the music. The apotheosis-like final page incorporates the grandeur of Zeus without obliterating the slender grace of the flower. The postlude, like that for Schubert’s Ganymed, restores classical poise in the wake of heavenly upheaval.
i Má píseň zas mi láskou zní / My song rings out with love again
ii Aj! Kterak trojhranec můj / Hey, how my triangle
iii A les je tichý kolem kol / The woods are silent all around
iv Když mne stará matka / Songs my mother taught me
v Struna naladěna / Now the string is tuned, lad
vi Široké rukávy / Flowing sleeves and trousers
vii Dejte klec jestřábu / Give the hawk a cage
"Songs My Mother Taught Me" is a song for voice and piano written in 1880 by Antonín Dvořák. It is the fourth of seven songs from his cycle Gypsy Songs (Czech: Cigánské melodie), B. 104, Op. 55. The Gypsy Songs are set to poems by Adolf Heyduk in both Czech and German. This song in particular has achieved widespread fame.
Geheimes (D 719)
Heiß mich nicht reden, heiß mich schweigen (D 726)
Suleika I (D 720)
It was in the genre of the lied that Schubert made his most indelible mark. Leon Plantinga remarks that “in his more than six hundred Lieder he explored and expanded the potentialities of the genre, as no composer before him.” Prior to Schubert’s influence, Lieder tended toward a strophic, syllabic treatment of text, evoking the folksong qualities engendered by the stirrings of Romantic nationalism.
i Ruhe, meine Seele, ii Cäcilie, iii Heimliche Aufforderung, iv Morgen
Op 27 is a set of four songs composed by Richard Strauss in 1894. They were originally for voice and piano, and not orchestrated by Strauss until 1948, after he had completed one of his Four Last Songs, “Im Abendrot”.
Lizzie Estrada - Soprano
Lizzie Bett Estrada is a Filipino soprano. Recently, she took part as one of the young artists in Leeds Song Festival’s Young Artist Program where she performed and had masterclasses with Elly Ameling, Thomas Allen, and Anna Tilbrook. In Summer, she will be in Toronto Summer Music Festival as part of their Emerging Artist Program. She was a prize winner for several vocal competitions, including 1st prize in the Kathleen Ferrier Bursary for Young Singers Competition 2023, 1st prize in the National Music Competitions for Young Artist 2020 – Junior Voice Category, and 2nd prize in Odin International Competition 2021. This year, she was awarded 3rd Prize at Royal Academy of Music’s Schumann Lieder Prize and 3rd prize at the Basel International Lieder/Song Vocal Competition in Tokyo.
Thomas Scott - Piano
Tom Scott has a BMus first class honours degree from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, where he studied with Robin Green. He is now pursuing a post-graduate degree at the Royal Academy of Music under Michael Dussek and John Reid.
Double Bass/Piano Duo
22 May 2025
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