Understanding Schubert: Multimedia Lecture 2017

In Susan Waterfall’s multi-media exploration of Franz Schubert’s life, you will learn how the Vienna of Mozart and Beethoven changed with an increasingly large, restricted and regimented urban middle class. Schubert’s potent settings of Romantic lyric poetry thrived in bourgeois settings where there was a growing need for personal emotional outlet. The inwardness and subjectivity of Schubert’s music mirrored the search for meaning and belonging in an alienating world where nature was increasingly seen as the only solace.

Tenor Brian Thorsett and pianist Miles Graber will perform characteristic lieder.

Understanding Schubert: Affirmations of Individualism

Join Susan Waterfall and an array of exceptional Festival musicians for three days of lectures and narrated concerts exploring the life and music of Schubert. The Vienna of Mozart and Beethoven changed with an increasingly large and regimented urban middle class. The inwardness of Schubert’s music mirrored the search for meaning in a world where nature was increasingly seen as the only solace.

Explore the Series

“Waterfall’s productions always present exciting, absorbing playing of great music, but are also rare, distinctive examples of what can be called music education, though they’re more conversational, truly a sharing of perspective, interest, anecdote. There’s a sense of immediacy to her delivery, weaving in and out of the playing, an intimately conceived present awareness of this heritage. It’s something unique that needs to be experienced.” Ken Bullock, Berkeley Daily Planet