Roderick Williams OBE & Myra Huang: Sublime Schubert
A BREATHTAKING RECITAL OF SCHUBERT LIEDER
From King Charles’s coronation and the Royal Opera House, to the renowned Wigmore Hall and the London Philharmonic, baritone Roderick Williams is among the UK’s and world’s most sought-after voices. He is an officer of Britain’s illustrious Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE), a distinction for his contributions to the arts and sciences. This recital is an immersion into a powerfully moving evening of Schubert’s full Schwanengesang (Swan Song) cycle, along with Williams-selected Schubert favorites. Joining Williams is Tigard-grown, two-time Grammy-nominated pianist Myra Huang who returns to Portland for this special appearance.
“Williams matches that fastidiousness with performances that are a reminder that no other singer today inhabits this repertoire so completely and movingly. Every word is perfectly coloured, every phrase exactly weighted.”
— The Guardian
First Presbyterian Church of Portland
Tuesday, 10/29 • 7:30 pm PT
Program
Click on any piece of music below to learn more about it.
- SCHUBERT “Schwanengesang” (Swan Song), D. 957
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Schwanengesang (Swan Song), D. 957 (48’)
I. Liebesbotschaft (Message of Love)
II. Kriegers Ahnung (Warrior’s Foreboding)
III. Frühlingssehnsucht (Longing in Springtime)
IV. Ständchen (Serenade)
V. Aufenthalt (Resting Place)
VI. In der Ferne (In the Distance)
VII. Abschied (Farewell)
VIII. Der Atlas (Atlas)
IX. Ihr Bild (Her Image)
X. Das Fischermädchen (The Fisher-Maiden)
XI. Die Stadt (The City)
XII. Am Meer (By the Sea)
XIII. Der Doppelgänger (The Double)
XIV. Die Taubenpost (The Pigeon Post)
In 1828, Franz Schubert’s six-year battle with syphilis began its final lethal phase; the 31-year-old composer, whose health had been precarious for years, knew his time was running out. Nonetheless, Schubert worked tirelessly, producing some of his finest music, including the final three piano sonatas and the collection of songs known as Schwanengesang (Swan Song).
Schubert never thought of Schwanengesang’s 14 songs as a cycle, nor did he intend to publish them together. Unlike Schubert’s previous song cycles, Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin, whose poems by a single author tell one gradually unfolding story, the songs in Schwanengesang do not share a common narrative, nor are the texts by a single poet. Nonetheless, after Schubert’s death, his publisher Tobias Haslinger issued the songs in one grouping with an absurdly Romantic title, hoping to capitalize on the success of Schubert’s earlier works.In 1825, poet Ludwig Rellstab sent seven poems to Beethoven, who died before he could begin working on them. Rellstab may have then forwarded them to Schubert, or Schubert may have found them amongst Beethoven’s papers following the older composer’s death; historical accounts vary. However Schubert gained possession of Rellstab’s poems, his melodies and piano accompaniments deftly evoke a wide range of emotions and images.
Love/loss and ecstatic paeans to nature (not coincidentally two of Schubert’s favorite subjects), feature prominently. Schubert provides the joyous optimistic songs Liebesbotschaft, Frühlingssehnsucht, and Abschied with limpid piano figurations flowing underneath lyrical melodies. In the bleaker songs: Kriegers Ahnung, Aufenthalt, and In der Ferne, the piano’s weighty chords evoke, in turn, anguish, despair, and resignation. Ständchen, one of Schubert’s most popular songs, uses shifting minor-to-major harmonies to express the lover’s half-painful, half-pleasurable longing for his beloved.
—© Elizabeth Schwartz
- SCHUBERT “Willkommen und abschied” (Welcome and Departure), D. 767
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Willkommen und abschied (Welcome and Departure), D. 767
- SCHUBERT “Ganymed” (Ganymede), D. 544
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Ganymed (Ganymede), D. 544
- SCHUBERT “Rastlose Liebe” (Relentless Love), D. 138
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Rastlose Liebe (Relentless Love), D. 138
- SCHUBERT “Der Musensohn” (The Son of the Muses), D. 764
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Der Musensohn (The Son of the Muses), D. 764
- SCHUBERT “Auf dem See” (On the Lake), D. 543
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Auf dem See (On the Lake), D. 543
- SCHUBERT “Wandrers Nachtlied” (Traveller’s Night Song), D. 768
FRANZ SCHUBERT (1797-1828) Wandrers Nachtlied (Traveller’s Night Song), D. 768
Artists
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Roderick Williams OBE
Baritone
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Roderick Williams is one of the UK’s most sought-after baritones and is constantly in demand on the concert platform and in recital, encompassing repertoire from the baroque to world premieres.
Opera engagements have included major roles at leading opera houses worldwide including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, English National Opera, Dutch National Opera, Dallas Opera, the Bregenz Festival, and Oper Köln. He has been involved in many world premieres including Alexander Knaifel’s Alice in Wonderland, several operas by Michel van der Aa, the title role in Robert Saxton’s The Wandering Jew, and the UK premiere of Sally Beamish’s Judas Passion with the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment.
Notable operatic engagements have includes Oronte in Charpentier’s Medée, Toby Kramer in van der Aa’s Sunken Garden, Don Alfonso / Cosi fan Tutte and Sharpless / Madam Butterfly, and baritone in a staging of Britten’s War Requiem for English National Opera, the title role in Eugene Onegin for Garsington Opera, the title role in Billy Budd for Opera North, van der Aa’s After Life at Melbourne State Theatre and at Opera de Lyon, and van de Aa’s Upload for Dutch National Opera, the Bregenz Festival, Oper Köln, and at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. He has also appeared as Papageno and as Ulisse / Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria for the Royal Opera House, Toby Kramer for Dallas Opera, and Christus / St John Passion in staged performances with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, both under Sir Simon Rattle. In 2023 he sang Germont in La Traviata at the St Endellion Festival and recorded the role for a new film by Opera Glassworks in 2023/24.
Recent and future concert engagements include performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Hallé, Britten Sinfonia, City of London Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Gabrieli Consort, The Sixteen, The King’s Consort, Le Concert Spirituel, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Berlin Philharmonic, RIAS Kammerchor, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Bayerische Rundfunk, San Francisco Symphony, Music of the Baroque Chicago, New York Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Sao Paulo Symphony, Bach Collegium Japan, and Singapore Symphony. He is a regular performer at the BBC Proms, featuring as the soloist in the Last Night in 2014, and most recently appearing in the St Matthew Passion in 2021, and the world premiere of Matthew Kaner’s Pearl in 2022. This season’s engagements include tours of Japan with the BBC SO, of Europe with the RIAS Kammerchor, and of North America with Bach Collegium Japan.
He is an accomplished recital artist who can be heard regularly at venues and festivals including Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, LSO St Luke’s, the Perth Concert Hall, Ludlow Song Festival, Oxford Lieder Festival, Howard Assembly Room in Leeds, Bath International Festival, Three Choirs Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, the Concertgebouw, and the Musikverein. In 2019 he performed all three Schubert cycles at Wigmore Hall. His recital programmes often feature repertoire by British composers, including many new works. He appears frequently on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 as both performer and presenter.
His numerous recordings include Vaughan Williams, Berkeley, and Britten operas for Chandos, and an extensive repertoire of English song with pianist Iain Burnside for Naxos. Other recent recordings include an award-winning disc of French song with Roger Vignoles for Champs Hill Records, the three Schubert cycles with Iain Burnside for Chandos, and recordings of Stanford and Somervell with Susie Allan for Somm. He has also recorded Schubert’s Winter Journey in a new translation by Jeremy Samms with Christopher Glynn for Signum. He sang Captain Balstrode / Peter Grimes with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for Chandos (Gramophone Recording of the Year 2021). He has also recorded his own arrangement of Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad and other English repertoire with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder, also for Chandos.
He is an established composer and has recently taken up the role of composer in association of the BBC Singers. Commissions include a major work, World without End, for the RIAS Kammerchor and BBC Singers, as well as a commission to celebrate the centenary of the RAF. He was artistic director of Leeds Lieder + in April 2016 and Artist-in-Residence with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra 2020-2022. Currently he is Singer-in-Residence for Music in the Round in Sheffield, presenting concerts and leading on dynamic and innovative learning and participation projects that introduce amateur singers, young and old, to performing classical song repertoire. In 2023 he was artistic director of the St Endellion Summer Festival, and Artist-in-Residence at the Aldeburgh Festival.
In 2016 he won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer of the Year award, and in June 2017 was awarded an OBE for services to music. He also performed at the Coronation of King Charles III in 2023.
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Myra Huang
Piano
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Myra Huang is the head of music at the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera. She is also the head of music at the Aspen Opera Theater Vocal Arts Program, as well as Collaborative Piano faculty at The Manhattan school of Music. Huang has served on the music staffs of the Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, New York City Opera, and the Palau De Les Arts in Valencia, Spain. She was head of music for New York City Opera from 2011-2013, as well as staff pianist for the Operalia Competition from 2005-2019. Acclaimed by Opera News as being “among the top accompanists of her generation,” and “...a colouristic tour de force” by The New York Times, Grammy Award-nominated pianist Huang regularly travels around the world in concert with today’s leading opera and classical singers, performing at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The 92ndStY, The Park Avenue Armory, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and Wigmore Hall. Huang also regularly adjudicates competitions and gives masterclasses throughout the U.S., including The Met Laffont Competition, SongStudio at Carnegie Hall, and The Schmidt Vocal Arts Competition.
Huang is an avid recitalist and recording artist. Her album Gods and Monsters with tenor Nicholas Phan was nominated for “Best Classical Vocal Solo Album” at the 60th Grammy Awards in 2018, and their album Clairières featuring the music of Lili and Nadia Boulanger was nominated in the same category for the 63rd Grammy Awards in 2021. Huang is a Steinway Artist.