Gerald Finley baritone

Julius Drake piano

PROGRAMME

Franz Schubert
Schwanengesang D 957

Johannes Brahms
Vier ernste Gesänge op. 121

Canadian baritone and Grammy Award winner Gerald Finley is a major opera singer. However, Finley – with his expressive voice – is just as captivating and sensitive when he turns his attention to the lieder form. He enjoys a close and incredibly successful musical friendship with the English pianist Julius Drake, who is one of the greatest lieder accompanists of our time. With Schubert’s »Schwanengesang« and Brahms’s »Vier ernsten Gesängen«, Finley and Drake now perform two of the nineteenth century’s most magical song cycles, which express the essence of two rich lieder composers’ lives. In 1828, Schubert set to music poems by Heinrich Heine, singing of a distant love. In contrast, Brahms in his 1896 work »Vier ernsten Gesängen« sets extracts from the Old and New Testaments to music.