Israel’s Schubertiade Festival is set to open on January 14 and continue until February 21 with 10 concerts at 10 venues throughout the country. “We are celebrating for the 19th consecutive season the music of composer Franz Schubert which is simply magic,” says cellist, Dr. Raz Kohn, director and founder of Schubertiade Israel.
Kohn points out that Schubert’s music was not widely popular during his short lifetime, (1797—1828). Although he wrote copious amounts of music for small ensembles, eight symphonies, an opera, and over 600 songs which became the mainstay of German Lieder [poetry set to classical music], his music was performed to limited audiences only, at the grand literary and artistic salons and soirees of Vienna.
“It was only after his death that he was realized for his genius,” posits Dr. Kohn, “and today people flock to the Shubertiade [pronounced Schuber–ti–ada] festivals performed worldwide in celebration of his music.”
Kohn established the first Schubertiade in Israel in 2006, to be celebrated around the date of Schubert’s birth. “The ground rules of the festival,” he explains, “are to create performances of high quality; bring in excellent instrumentalists and vocalists from both Israel and abroad; and demonstrate the variety, beauty, and originality of Schubert’s works.
On January 14, the Schubertiade begins at the Tel Aviv – Yaffo Music Center with a master class led by Yuval Admon for young performers and teachers, emphasizing music written for four hands at the piano. “This was a genre Schubert excelled in,” says Kohn. “It is a very handy and enjoyable way of music making. More than just playing the notes, the two performers must breathe and interpret as one.”
On January 16 and 18, two recitals will be presented: One at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and the other in Tel Aviv at Studio Annette with the noted German baritone Samuel Hasselhorn and Amiel Bushkevich at the piano, performing one of Schubert’s most beloved song cycles, “The Miller’s Beautiful Daughter,” based on the poems of William Müller. The work is considered one of Schubert’s most important cycles, and one of the pinnacles of German Lieder.
THE NEXT six concerts in Nahalal; at the Haifa Rappaport Auditorium; on the Jerusalem campus of Mormon University Mount Scopus; at Kibbutz Afikim; in Rishon Lezion’s Heichal Hatarbut; and at Tel Aviv’s Zuker Hall, highlight some of the greatest delights of chamber music: the Schubert String Quintet in C major D.956 and Brahms String Quintet in F minor Op. 34 to be performed by the Quartet HaRishonim, (Gilad Hildesheim, violin, Dotan Tal, violin, Irit Livneh, viola, and Raz Kohn, cello) and internationally celebrated guest artist, cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper.
Schubert composed this quintet in 1828, the last year of his life, and scored it for two violins, viola, and two cellos, which is unusual. The two cellos play lyrical, almost vocal lines which gives the quintet a special beauty.
Thirty years later, Brahms wrote that he heard the Schubert quintet in Vienna and was so impressed by it and the sonorous parts for the two cellos, he composed a string quintet of his own, also using two cellos. Yet, even after showing it and receiving fine remarks from two of his friends, composer and pianist Clara Schumann and violinist Joachim, Brahms was not pleased. Subsequently, he reworked it into a Sonata for two pianos. Still not happy, he reworked again into a Piano Quintet (string quartet and piano). This is the way it has remained for almost a century because in the midst of his displeasure, Brahms destroyed his original string quintet.
With Brahm’s original string quintet was seemingly lost, in 1946, the English composer Sebastian Brown used Brahm’s Piano Quintet no. 34 to “reconstruct” the piece back to its original form as a string quintet. Kohn believes the Schubertiade performance of the Brahms String Quintet in F Minor (in its original instrumentation) will be its debut in Israel.
CELLIST KRISTINA Reiko Cooper is delighted to join the Quartet HaRishonim in performing the two quintets. “Schubert was one of the greatest composers,” she enthusiastically told The Jerusalem Post. “He stretched the musical boundaries of his time and brought a lyrical, vocal line to his instrumental music.
On a personal note, she joyfully shares with the Post, the memory of listening to the Schubert Quintet with her parents as a child of six or seven and hearing the beauty of the two cello parts meshed with the two violins and viola. This was her initial inspiration to play the cello.
Other treats for the listener will include pianist Itamar Feinberg joining the programs on January 25, 26, and 31 to perform the Schubert Sonata in B major for piano D.664 and two transcriptions for piano on Schubert by Franz Liszt.
On January 25 at the Rappaport Auditorium in Haifa and February 1 at Zucker Hall in Tel Aviv, Rachel Frankel, mezzo-soprano and pianist, Orit Wolf will add to the performance of the quintets an innovative pairing of six songs, three composed by Schubert and three by Brahms. Both composers set their songs to the same texts by Goethe and Hoenty. “It will be interesting and beautiful to hear how the interpretations of the two composers varied,” remarks Kohn.
Fittingly, the month of Schubertiade 2025 will end with a concert on February 21 at Studio Annette in Tel Aviv, on behalf of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, by the winners of the Lieder Competition, for which the Schubertiade awards one of the prizes,
For further information: https://www.shubertiade.co.il
