CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Ian Bostridge
Thomas Adès
Performers
Ian Bostridge, Tenor
Thomas Adès, Piano
Program
SCHUBERT Winterreise
Event Duration
The printed program will last approximately 75 minutes with no intermission. Please note that there will be no late seating.At a Glance
Along the way, he ponders the nature of his journey—a symbol of life itself from Homer on—and heroically but unsuccessfully attempts to put aside his grief in order to continue living. He is tempted by inner voices proffering death in the fifth song ("The Linden Tree") but never attempts suicide, although he longs for death with increasing fervor as the journey continues. Throughout, he probes his inner self for answers to his questions about existence, and the questions finally lead to a grim epiphany in the 20th song ("The Signpost"), in which he recognizes a stark and awful fate. At the end, he sees himself in the hallucinatory image of a hurdy-gurdy player, grinding away at his instrument despite the fact that no one can hear him.
In early 19th-century Europe, songs were generally considered to be trifles intended for amateur music making at home. Schubert, his ambitions monumental from the start, would not have it that way and composed two song cycles on poetry by Müller (Die schöne Müllerin, or The Beautiful Miller Maid, of 1823 is the other), whose depth and breadth are audible to all with ears, eyes, and hearts. Never again would anyone be able to say that "song" was not the equal of symphonies, operas, or string quartets in profundity.
Bios
Ian Bostridge
Ian Bostridge's international career has included performances at all the world's major
concert halls and the Edinburgh, Munich, Vienna, Aldeburgh, Salzburg, and Schubertiade
festivals, as well as artistic residencies at the Vienna Konzerthaus, Amsterdam's
Concertgebouw, Philharmonie Luxembourg, London's Barbican Centre and Wigmore Hall, and
Hamburg's Laeiszhalle.
In opera, he has performed the roles of Lysander (A Midsummer Night's Dream) with
Opera Australia at the Edinburgh International Festival; Tamino (Die Zauberflöte)
and Jupiter (Semele) with the English National Opera; Peter Quint (The Turn of
the Screw), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), and Caliban (Thomas Adès's The
Tempest) with the Royal Opera; Nerone (L'incoronazione di Poppea), Tom
Rakewell (The Rake's Progress), and Male Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia)
with the Bavarian State Opera; and Don Ottavio with the Vienna State Opera. He has also
sung Aschenbach (Death in Venice) with the English National Opera and in Brussels
and Luxembourg.
Recent engagements include a tour of Asia with guitarist Xuefei Yang and singing the
Evangelist in a staged version of Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the Hamburg
State Opera. Highlights of the 2016-2017 season include his opera debut at Milan's Teatro
alla Scala as Peter Quint, an American recital tour of Schubert's
Winterreisse with Mr. Adès, a staged Schubert project with the Los Angeles
Philharmonic, performances of Hans Zender's Winterreise in Taipei and
Perth, and Britten's Curlew River in Hamburg and Madrid.
Mr. Bostridge's award-winning recordings include works by Schubert with Graham Johnson
(Gramophone Award, 1996); The Rake's Progress with Sir John Eliot
Gardiner (Grammy Award, 1999); works by Schumann with Julius Drake
(Gramophone Award, 1998); The Turn of the
Screw (Gramophone Award, 2003) and Billy Budd (Grammy
Award, 2010) with Daniel Harding; and Mr. Adès's The
Tempest (Gramophone Award, 2010). He has also recorded recital programs
of Schubert, Wolf, and Britten with Antonio Pappano.
Mr. Bostridge has worked with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Los Angeles Philharmonic,
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra,
London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam
Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic under
conductors who include Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Andrew Davis, Seiji Ozawa,
Antonio Pappano, Riccardo Muti, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Barenboim, Daniel Harding,
and Donald Runnicles. He also sang the world premiere of Henze's Opfergang with
the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome under Mr. Pappano.
Mr. Bostridge was elected an honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College in 2001, received
an honorary doctorate from the University of St. Andrews in 2003, and was made a Commander
in the Order of the British Empire in 2004. In 2014, he was named the Humanitas visiting
professor of classical music at the University of Oxford; two years later, he was awarded
The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize for nonfiction writing in recognition of his book
Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession.
Thomas Adès
Composer, pianist, and conductor Thomas Adès was born in London in 1971. Among his
compositions are three operas, including The Exterminating Angel, which received
its premiere at the Salzburg Festival this past summer. It will also be performed at the
Metropolitan Opera, Royal Danish Opera, and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in coming
seasons. His first opera, Powder Her Face, received its premiere at the Almeida
Theatre in 1995 as part of the Cheltenham Festival. The Tempest was commissioned
by the Royal Opera House in 2004, with subsequent productions at the Vienna State Opera and
the Metropolitan Opera. His orchestral works include Asyla (City of
Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, 1997); Violin Concerto, "Concentric Paths" (Berliner
Festspiele at the BBC Proms, 2005); Tevot (Berliner Philharmoniker at
Carnegie Hall, 2007); In Seven Days: Piano Concerto with Moving Image (Los Angeles
Philharmonic at London's Royal Festival Hall, 2008); Polaris (New World
Symphony, 2011); and Totentanz for mezzo-soprano, baritone, and orchestra
(BBC Proms, 2013).
Mr. Adès was recently appointed the Boston Symphony Orchestra's first artistic partner.
Starting this fall, he will serve as a conductor, pianist, curator, and educator for
members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra community in Boston and at the Tanglewood
Festival. He also coaches piano and chamber music at the International Musicians Seminar at
Prussia Cove, and guest conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic,
London Symphony Orchestra, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, among others. He has led
opera productions with the Royal Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra,
Salzburg Festival, and Zurich Opera. Future conducting plans include
Totentanz with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles
Philharmonic.
From 1999 to 2008, Mr. Adès was the artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival. His many
awards include the Grawemeyer Award for Asyla; the Royal Philharmonic Society's
Large-Scale Composition Award for Asyla, The Tempest, and Tevot;
the Ernst von Siemens Composers' Prize for Arcadiana; and the British Composer
Award for The Four Quarters. His recording of The Tempest at the
Royal Opera House (EMI) won the Contemporary category of the 2010
Gramophone Awards, and his DVD of the Metropolitan Opera production of
The Tempest won the Diapason d'Or de l'année in 2013, a Grammy
Award for Best Opera Recording in 2014, and an ECHO Klassik Award for DVD Recording of the
Year in 2014. Mr. Adès was also awarded Denmark's prestigious Léonie Sonning Music Prize in
2015.