Bourgie Hall: Complete Schubert Lieder

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Excellence, beauty and discovery. These are the keywords used by Bourgie Hall to present its new concert season. If there’s one event that brings them all together, it’s the launch of their traversal of the complete catalogue of Schubert’s Lieder.

Bourgie Hall’s presentation of the complete cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach had only scarcely been completed when artistic director Olivier Godin was already thinking of another project on a similarly grand scale. There are no fewer than 600 songs born of Schubert’s genius. “It’s a very rich body of works,” he says, “and yet the public hears perhaps 20 per cent of his Lieder frequently. We’re going to try to cover everything. It will take several years, as you can imagine—until 2028 at least, the year that will mark the 200th anniversary of the composer’s death.”

Godin plans to draw on various formats to present this repertoire, originally written for solo voice and piano, including duos, trios, quartets and choir, with piano and other instruments. “We’ll be doing recitals devoted entirely to Schubert, but also a variety of recitals in which Schubert’s work will be highlighted in relation to other works by composers who were his contemporaries,” he explains.

Schubert, the inspiration

Ema Nikolovska, mezzo-soprano. Photo: Kaupo Kikkas.

In addition to these concerts, there will be a number of Schubert-inspired commissions. Composer Sandeep Bhagwati, in residence at Concordia University, will write a work for voice and fortepiano based on texts by Heinrich Heine, the German poet who inspired some of Schubert’s most famous songs. This new work will be premièred by soprano Magali Simard-Galdès on Nov. 2. There will also be several pre-concert lectures, including one by former Radio-Canada presenter Jean Portugais on Feb. 26, followed by a much-anticipated performance by tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Julius Drake.

“Schubert inspired the composers of his time and those of the new generation. His corpus of Lieder remains unsurpassed,” says Godin. Some, like Berlioz, Webern and Max Reger, even orchestrated them. In that vein, the Sept. 25 season-opening concert with Orchestre de l’Agora featured some new Schubert song arrangements by Canadian composer Ian Cusson. They were performed by Canadian mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska, who sang at Bourgie Hall last year and returned under the baton of Nicolas Ellis.

A new schedule

Benjamin Appl, baritone. Photo: David Ruano.

Unlike the complete Bach cantatas, which were presented on Sundays, Bourgie Hall is planning to program Schubert’s Lieder on different days. “We want to reach out to all kinds of audiences, inviting people to join us at different times for this incredible experience,” says Godin. “In Schubert’s case, it’s essentially secular music, apart from a few religious works. So there was no need to give concerts every Sunday or to respect the liturgical day for which a work was composed. We wanted to do things differently. Some will be on Sunday afternoons, others in the evenings during the week.”

Programming secrets

In relation to connecting with diverse audiences, the question- arises: how to design relevant, attractive programming across the entire catalogue? Godin’s answer: “The key is to take stock of everything we have at our disposal. I’ve had an assistant to help me do all this work and keep track of the Lieder once they’ve been chosen. It’s important not to include the best-known pieces straight away, right from the start, but rather to sprinkle them throughout the complete works. On the other hand, don’t give these hits only to the very big artists. Lesser-known musicians also deserve to perform Lieder that appeal to a wider audience. The idea is to find a good balance and to imagine this project in the long term—to take our time, to think carefully about how we want to approach this repertoire, to make proposals to the artists, but also to be receptive to their own suggestions. I think that’s really necessary. It’s a team effort.”

Big Names in Lieder

Ian Bostridge, tenor. Photo: Marco Borggreve.

For Year 1 of the complete works, Bourgie Hall will welcome some of the world’s leading Schubert specialists. Godin confides that he asked the great English tenor Ian Bostridge to choose Lieder that are a little more off the beaten track. “We know that people who love Schubert will come to hear him. He’s given us a really extraordinary list of pieces.”

The first song cycle to appear on the program happens to be Schubert’s last in chronological terms: Schwanengesang (Swan song), an atypical cycle that sets verses by various German poets to music. It will be performed by baritone Benjamin Appl and pianist Eric Lu. “It’s an extremely poignant cycle, and a darker one, too—a way of breaking chronology and showing that we’re presenting the repertoire over a long period. We take the liberty of balancing the styles and characters of the Lieder. So we start with the last cycle. Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin will come later.”

And last but not least, baritone Christian Gerhaher, joined by pianist Gerold Huber. “He’s an immense musician, with exceptional artistic rigour,” says Godin. “He has made a huge number of recordings of Schubert. Exceptionally, he is offering us a recital of Schumann Lieder. It will be a great evening too, on January 28.”

Translation: Gianmarco Segato