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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Schubert - Swansong

Composer of the Week: Schubert - Swansong: Episode 1: The Beginning of the End

Schubert - Swansong

Episode 1

Episode 1: The Beginning of the End

The Beginning of the End

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Schubert - Swansong, The Beginning of the End

Donald Macleod discusses Schubert's last New Year's Eve party and final song collection.

Donald Macleod discusses Schubert's last New Year's Eve party, of 1827/8, as well as introducing his last collection of songs, Schwanengesang.

Donald Macleod explores the remarkable and prolific final year of Schubert's life, during which he battled failing health to compose a succession of masterpieces.

There are few composers whose genius is so fertile that you can make a whole week of programmes from a single year of their life. Yet even by Franz Schubert's remarkably prolific standards, his last 12 months were utterly extraordinary. As his body entered terminal decline through a mixture of alcoholism and syphilis, masterpiece upon masterpiece poured from his pen: the String Quintet in C, the delirious last three piano sonatas, his Mass in E flat, the last collection of lieder, posthumously titled "Swansong" - and many more besides. This week Donald Macleod takes us through the last year of Schubert's tragically foreshortened life and death at the age of only 31.

Donald Macleod begins the week with Schubert's last - typically boozy - New Year's Eve party, of 1827/8, before introducing his last collection of songs, cobbled together and titled "Swansong" by his publisher after the composer's death. We'll hear excerpt from the set, sung by some of the greatest contemporary interpreters of Schubert's work, all week.

Die Taubenpost (Schwanengesang)
Matthias Goerne, baritone
Christoph Eschenbach, piano

Piano Trio in E flat, D929 - II. Andante
Trio Wanderer

Fantasy in C major, D934
Vineta Sareika, violin
Amandine Savary, piano

Impromptu in F minor, D935 no.4 
Mitsuko Uchida, piano

Liebesbotschaft (Schwanengesang)
Matthias Goerne, baritone
Christoph Eschenbach, piano.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod explores the remarkable and prolific final year of Schubert's life

Donald Macleod explores the remarkable and prolific final year of Schubert's life, during which he battled failing health to compose a succession of masterpieces

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Episode 1: The Beginning of the End

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