Singing Crossroads.

The Verdi’s Songs concert is a rerun of the programme that was very successfully performed in the Mirror Foyer on October 24, 2013 during the Two Worlds of Two Maestros Festival, dedicated to the Bicentenary of Verdi’s and Wagner’s Birth. This is an integral portrait of the maestro’s vocal legacy, ranging from the Six Romances (1838) to Ave Maria (early 1880s). Along with Verdi’s original compositions, the concert includes instrumental fantasies on the themes from Verdi’s operas.

Tribute to Georgy Sviridov is devoted to the works of one of the prominent composers of the 20th century. Sviridov’s chamber music expresses not only his soul, mind and language, but also his understanding of Russia’s image.

Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle (1827) is one the most tragic pages in chamber music and the first culmination of the German Lied in the Romanticism. Schubert composed Winterreise when he was only thirty, but you can hear in his music that the genius lived in his own inner time. The music seems to be written by a very old man: its inescapable pain is expressed by scanty means and its silence is more terrible than a cry.

Winterreise is a desired goal and a challenge to any chamber singer. This concert is dedicated to one of the best interpreters of Schubert’s song cycle, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925–2012). A unique singer, an icon of style and taste, he loved Winterreise and recorded it three times (with Gerald Moore, Daniel Barenboim and Jörg Demus).

The host of all programmes is Mikhail Segelman