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Geister Duo

Schubert
Februari Festival
Fri 25 Feb / 16:00
Fri 25 Feb ’22
16:00
  • Fri 25 Feb ’22
    16:00
    Nieuwe Kerk, The Hague
    Past event

Schubert is the uncrowned king of four-handed piano. The Geister Duo, consisting of David Salmon and Manuel Vieillard, present a magnificent selection of famous and lesser-known gems from his oeuvre. 

Programme

Franz Schubert Sonata in B flat major, D617 
Franz Schubert Allegro & Andante, D968 
Franz Schubert Variations on a theme from Hérold's opera ‘Marie’, D908
Franz Schubert Deutscher & Ländler, D618 
Franz Schubert Fantasie in F minor, D940

Musicians

Geister Duo David Salmon & Manuel Vieillard piano duo - four hands

Among them are the sonata that Schubert wrote in the summer of 1818, which he spent in Zselis, Count Johann Karl Esterházy’s summer residence in modern-day Slovakia, but still part of Hungary at the time. Schubert taught the piano to the count’s two young daughters, and may well have written the sonata for them. While the opening is a clear homage to Mozart, Schubert’s own voice soon emerges in the main body of the sonata.

Almost ten years later, Schubert wrote eight variations on a theme from the opera Marie, a work by the thoroughly forgotten French composer Ferdinand Hérold. By this time he had left Mozart’s idiom far behind.

Obviously, an anthology such as this is not complete without the grand Fantasia in F minor, which expert Christopher Gibbs has described as Schubert’s best and most original composition for four-handed piano, and is one of the many wonders conceived by Schubert in the last year of his life.

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