Completion

"That beauty fades, that perfection dies" postulated Friedrich Schiller in 1800, when Franz Schubert was just three years old. Melancholy is one of the main emotional expressions of high Romanticism. It can have its own incomparable beauty. Even if it was not, and perhaps could not be, completed.

This evening was developed around the fragment of Franz Schubert's Symphony in B minor, the "Unfinished" - as a creative way of dealing with being unfinished. How lyrical lines emerge from nothing, how the dramaturgy of the opening movement unfolds lightly from the transparent instrumentation, changing into sombre wind chords - this is similarly "modern" 50 years before Brahms' First Symphony. Schubert's "Unfinished" is without question - even if these adjectives are not very precise - one of the most beautiful and touching pure orchestral works of its era. It is in the best of hands with the young conductor Friedrich Praetorius (Deutsche Oper Berlin).

The first part of the program also features Schubert twice: first excerpts from the "German Mass" with male voice quartet and wind accompaniment. In addition, the multiple award-winning (including the ARD Music Competition in Munich) clarinettist Shelley Ezra will perform Schubert songs arranged for his instrument by the clarinet virtuoso Carl Baermann and published by the Offenbach music publisher Johann André.

Schubert's "Unfinished" will be followed by the world premiere of "Perfection" for male voice quartet and orchestra, written for us by local composer Rolf Rudin. Rudin is one of the few German composers who are regularly performed in the USA and Asia.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
German Mass D 872
for male voice quartet
and wind ensemble

Franz Schubert / Carl Baermann / Jan Kohl
(1810-1885 / *1990)
Epheublätter - Songs by Franz Schubert
for clarinet and orchestra
"Good Night", op. 89 No.1, D 911
"By the sea", D 957/12
"Gretchen am Spinnrade", op.2, D 118

Franz Schubert
Symphony in B minor D 759 "Unfinished"

Rolf Rudin (*1961)
Completion
for male voice quartet
and orchestra (2026)
(world premiere)

Shelly Ezra, clarinet
Capitol Goldkehlen (Einst.: Carsten Rupp)
CAPITOL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Conductor: Friedrich Praetorius