Schwanengesang

The multi-talented Dutch baritone Thomas Oliemans is not only an exceptional singer: he is also a very fine pianist, and in 2022 he amazed audiences with his self-accompanied performance of Winterreise.

Tonight, he has excellent company on stage, joined by the acclaimed Italian-Dutch pianist Paolo Giacometti. They perform Schubert’s final songs, which were put together and given their ‘swansong’ title by the publisher Tobias Haslinger shortly after the composer’s death. These seven settings of the poet Ludwig Rellstab and six of Heinrich Heine, as well as the very last song Schubert wrote (‘Die Taubenpost’, a setting of Johann Seidl) can only leave us wondering what miracles he might have achieved had he lived beyond the age of 31. Between these groups of songs, Thomas and Paolo sit together at the keyboard to perform two of Schubert’s finest works for piano duet: the life-affirming Rondo in A major and the elegiac but dramatic Fantasy in F minor.