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Acclaimed pianist András Schiff concludes his extensive, season-long Perspectives series in May 2012, performing five concerts in Zankel Hall beginning with a solo recital featuring two US premieres by Hungarian composer György Kurtág as well as the world premiere of a new work by Jörg Widmann, commissioned by Carnegie Hall. Mr. Widmann, a German composer and clarinetist, is also the subject of a Making Music program that will feature Mr. Schiff. Later in May, Mr. Schiff collaborates in recital with German baritone Christian Gerhaher and appears twice with the Salzburg Marionette Theater, including a Carnegie Hall Family Concert.

Further details on each concert are noted below. For more information on András Schiff’s Perspectives series, please visit carnegiehall.org/schiff.

May 2: Three Premieres on Solo Recital in Zankel Hall
Mr. Schiff performs Bach’s two-part inventions, as well as music by Bartók and Beethoven in a solo recital in Zankel Hall on Wednesday, May 2 at 7:30 p.m. The program also includes the world premiere of Zirkustänze by Jörg Widmann, commissioned by Carnegie Hall, as well as the US premieres of Rituale - Strém Kálmán in memoriam and In Memory of a Pure Soul: Klara Schiff in Memoriam by György Kurtág, today's leading Hungarian composer and Schiff’s former teacher. On Kurtág, Mr Schiff said, “When Kurtág taught me piano and chamber music, he’s such a modest man that he never talked about his own music. He taught me Bach and Beethoven and Schubert and Bartók, with not a word about his own music. And then we discovered that there was this giant of a composer living among us.”

May 3: Making Music: Jörg Widmann
On Thursday, May 3 at 6:00 p.m. in Zankel Hall, Mr. Schiff appears on a Making Music program focusing on the music of German composer and clarinetist Jörg Widmann. The all-Widmann program is moderated by Carnegie Hall’s Director of Artistic Planning Jeremy Geffen and features performances by soprano Claron McFadden, pianist Shai Wosner, and The Parker Quartet, in addition to Mr. Schiff and Mr. Widmann. Mr. Schiff shared, “Jörg Widmann is from a much younger generation. He’s much younger than I am. He’s a wonderful clarinetist, a great clarinetist, one of the best in the world, and a performing musician, so he knows both worlds. He knows what it is to write a piece, but he sympathizes with the performers, because he has been on the other side of the fence.”

May 5–6: Salzburg Marionette Theater
Mr. Schiff joins the Salzburg Marionette Theater in Zankel Hall on Saturday, May 5 at 7:30 p.m. for Debussy’s La boîte à joujoux. Also on the program are solo piano pieces for Mr. Schiff: Schumann’s Kinderszenen and Debussy’s Children’s Corner. The following afternoon, Sunday, May 6 at 1:00 p.m., the troupe performs a Carnegie Hall Family Concert, presented by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, of Debussy’s La boîte à joujoux, again with Mr. Schiff. This chamber ballet about the adventures of toys that come to life was created especially for András Schiff by the Salzburg Marionette Theater, and initially grew out of his relationship with gifted puppeteer Philippe Brunner, with whom he first collaborated when Mr. Brunner was twelve. Of their collaboration, Mr. Schiff shared, “Philippe Brunner, who is now one of the leading members of the Salzburg Marionette Theater, was still a little boy, a teenager (maybe 12 years old), and he and his school friends had a puppet theater that they put together in Berlin just for fun. This was their hobby. They made the puppets and they would perform The Magic Flute and other Mozart operas. I saw this, and it was absolutely delightful, and I commissioned the children then in Berlin to prepare this Debussy piece for my festival in Austria, which they did. Many years have passed, and now I thought, ‘Philippe is now a professional puppet player. Why don’t we revisit this idea?’ So I asked him again to make a production, and another one of the original boys, Heinrich, who is now an opera director did the production. He was the regisseur. They did a wonderful production. We are very excited to bring that New York.”

May 12: Performing with Baritone Christian Gerhaher
András Schiff concludes his Perspectives series in Zankel Hall on Saturday, May 12 at 8:00 p.m. in a recital collaboration with baritone Christian Gerhaher, performing songs devoted to the pains of love, including Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte and Schumann’s Dichterliebe as well as works by Haydn. Mr. Schiff explained, “Christian Gerhaher is a marvelous singer, a German baritone. I had the privilege and luck to have played two concerts with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. We did the schöne Müllerin. But, unfortunately, he stopped singing then, and we couldn’t work together any longer. Fischer-Dieskau really set the example for the following generations of lieder singers of an unprecedented artistry and integrity. I’m very pleased to see, now, younger singers following in his footsteps. And yet, Christian Gerhaher is very much his own man. He is not going to sing everything like Fischer-Dieskau has done, but he chooses his repertoire very carefully. The few things he sings in the opera (Papageno or the Count in Figaro or Wolfram in Tannhauser) are just some chosen roles, not everything. And I’m very, very fond of him as a lieder singer, and I’m delighted that we can do this program together. We have done a few performances in Europe of the Dichterliebe of Schumann. I never heard it sung more beautifully than he did, so I’m really looking forward to that.”

About the Artist
András Schiff was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1953 and started piano lessons at the age of five with Elisabeth Vadász. Recitals and special cycles, like the major keyboard works of J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, and Bartók form an important part of his activities. Between 2004 and 2009, he performed complete cycles of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas in 20 cities throughout the United States and Europe, a project recorded live in the Zürich Tonhalle and released in eight volumes for ECM New Series.

In addition to his Carnegie Hall Perspectives series, Mr. Schiff’s performances during the 2011-2012 season include concerts with the Budapest Festival Orchestra at the Kennedy Center and the Salzburg Marionette Theater at Princeton, as well as recitals with Christian Gerhaher in Philadelphia, Vancouver, and Toronto. Solo recitals will be given in Philadelphia, Boulder, Berkeley, and Napa, CA. Future North American engagements will focus on a two-season project dedicated to Johann Sebastian Bach. Mr. Schiff has worked with most of the major international orchestras and conductors, but now performs mainly as conductor and soloist. In 1999, Mr. Schiff created his own chamber orchestra, the Cappella Andrea Barca, which consists of international soloists, chamber musicians, and close friends. In addition to working annually with this orchestra, he also works every year with the Philharmonia Orchestra London and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

Mr. Schiff has established a prolific discography, including recordings for London/Decca (1981-1994), Teldec (1994-1997), and, since 1997, ECM New Series. Recordings for ECM include the complete solo piano music of Beethoven and Janácek, a solo disc of Schumann piano pieces, the Bach Partitas and his second recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations. He has received several international recording awards, including two Grammy Awards for Best Classical Instrumental Soloist (Without Orchestra) for the Bach English Suites, and Best Vocal Recording for Schubert's Schwanengesang with tenor Peter Schreier, and a Grammy Award nomination for Best Classical Album (Without Orchestra) for the second volume of his complete Beethoven sonatas recordings for ECM.

Carnegie Hall’s Perspectives
Now in its 13th season, Carnegie Hall’s Perspectives series is an artistic initiative in which select musicians are invited to explore their own musical individuality and create their own personal concert series through collaborations with other musicians and ensembles. Previous Perspectives artists have included conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim; conductors Pierre Boulez, James Levine, Michael Tilson Thomas, and David Robertson; violinists Gidon Kremer and Christian Tetzlaff; cellist Yo-Yo Ma; pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Leif Ove Andsnes, Martha Argerich, Emanuel Ax, Maurizio Pollini, Peter Serkin, and Mitsuko Uchida; soprano Dawn Upshaw; bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff; the Emerson String Quartet; the Kronos Quartet; Senegalese vocalist Youssou N’Dour; Brazilian singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso; Indian classical tabla player Zakir Hussain; experimental rocker David Byrne; and singer/songwriter James Taylor. In March 2012, L’Arpeggiata was the first early music ensemble to present a Perspectives series. In 2013, soprano Renée Fleming will be Carnegie Hall’s next Perspectives

artist.

Bank of America is the Proud Season Sponsor of Carnegie Hall.
 

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