Name: Christian Gerhaher baritone; Gerold Huber piano
Start: 2024-12-16T19:30:00
Location: Wigmore Hall

London is set to host a series of extraordinary events celebrating Robert Schumann, featuring performances at iconic venues like Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, and Barbican Centre. With tenors, pianists, and orchestras, these concerts will showcase Schumann's masterpieces, from the romantic Kerner Lieder Op. 35 to the imaginative Fantasiestücke and the lyrical Piano Concerto, alongside other classical gems. Join us for a journey through Schumann's musical brilliance.

Experience the Magic of Schumann Across London: A Series of Unforgettable Concerts

Christian Gerhaher

Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall’s celebration of the piano continues with a recital from one of Britain’s most thrilling young artists. Gramophone hit the mark in its review of her debut album of works by, among others, Chopin and Florence Price: ‘Jeneba impresses as a pianist of enormous technical resources in service of an uncommonly rich and versatile musical imagination. With so much in full flower at such an early age, her future will surely be dazzling.’

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason piano

Argentine pianist Nelson Goerner’s artistry has beguiled audiences at Wigmore Hall and other global centres of musical excellence since the early 1990s. His latest programme embraces the improvisatory freedom of JS Bach’s Toccata in C minor BWV911, with its surprising inventive twists and turns, the emotional switchback ride of Robert Schumann’s Fantasie and the passionate drama of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in C minor D958, composed in the last year of his life.

Nelson Goerner piano

Jason Moran returns to Wigmore Hall for a solo performance that reflects his clear, searching musical voice. As Rolling Stone observed, he is ‘shaping up to be the most provocative thinker in current jazz’, a reputation earned through artistry that continually refreshes the way audiences listen.

Jason Moran piano

Since winning the Salzburg International Mozart Competition in 2016, Saskia Giorgini has secured prominence among the top flight of today’s artists with the heartfelt lyricism and musical intelligence of her pianism. She recalls the beauty and refinement of Belle Époque Paris in a programme that includes exquisite miniatures by Mel Bonis and Lili Boulanger and closes with L’isle joyeuse, Debussy’s seductive evocation of Aegean warmth and colour.

Saskia Giorgini piano

Armed with phenomenal technical powers and the ability to produce spontaneous and poetic insights at will, Yeol Eum Son draws audiences deep into the works in her vast repertoire. She graces Wigmore Hall’s Piano Festival this lunchtime with a compelling programme of compositions by some of the last century’s greatest pianists, the hauntingly beautiful Elegy by Tatiana Nikolayeva and Wanda Landowska’s shimmering Feu follet among them.

Yeol Eum Son piano

A glance at Fretwork’s copious discography reveals the scope of its musical interests and appetite for exploring the glories of the viol consort repertoire. It is joined by a cast of close colleagues and friends to celebrate its 40th anniversary at Wigmore Hall with a programme that reaches back to the consort music of Dowland, John Jenkins and William Lawes and forward to works by Sir George Benjamin and Silas Wollston. ‘Fretwork is the finest viol consort on the planet’, wrote the London Evening Standard, a view endorsed by sage critics worldwide.

Fretwork; Sir George Benjamin conductor; Susan Bickley mezzo-soprano; Iestyn Davies countertenor; Ian Bostridge tenor; Silas Wollston organ

Can Çakmur, winner of the Hamamatsu and Scottish International Piano Competitions, has harvested a heavy crop of plaudits for his revelatory Schubert+ series for BIS Records. Schubert’s 4 Impromptus D899, composed in 1827, stands at the heart of the Turkish pianist’s recital, paired with Helmut Lachenmann’s Variations on a Theme of Schubert (1956) and Liszt’s impassioned ‘Vallée d’Obermann’, among the most intense expressions of yearning ever composed.

Can Çakmur piano

Zlata Chochieva’s recording of Chopin’s Etudes Opp. 10 & 25, released in 2014, was described by Gramophone’s reviewer as ‘one of the most consistently inspired, masterfully executed, and beautiful-sounding versions I can recall’. The Russian-born pianist brings an intoxicating blend of emotional freedom, immaculate technique and soulfulness to her interpretations of Chopin’s matchless compositions.

Zlata Chochieva piano

Allan Clayton tenor; Christine Rice mezzo-soprano; James Baillieu piano

Patricia Alessandrini’s intricate sound sculptures encompass a seemingly unlimited range of tonal colours and textures, both acoustic and electronic. The American composer and sound artist, whose teachers include Tristan Murail and Thea Musgrave, received praise from Gramophone for ‘her formidably disciplined manipulation of febrile emotions’. Her captivating art, including a major new composition, is complemented by the restless energy of Beat Furrer’s Aria from 1998-9.

Schallfeld Ensemble; Marisol Montalvo soprano; Johanna Vargas soprano

Armand Djikoloum’s poignant playing artistry has enraptured audiences and won new converts to his instrument with its suave sound and exhilarating energy. The French musician, solo oboe of the Hamburg Staatsoper since 2024, returns to Wigmore Hall for a recital comprising works that span the oboe’s eloquent expressive range, including Marina Dranishnikova’s exquisite Poème and the dramatic Oboe Suite by Pavel Haas, written on the eve of the Second World War.

Armand Djikoloum oboe; Jâms Coleman piano

Painstaking scholarship and voluminous knowledge of Mozart’s art underpin Robert Levin’s life-affirming interpretations of the composer’s music. He returns to Wigmore Hall with a selection of works that chart Mozart’s journey to artistic maturity, spanning everything from the dazzling brilliance of the Piano Sonata in G K283, written during his pivotal visit as a teenager to Munich in 1775, to the forward-looking Variations in B flat K500. Each half is prefaced by Levin’s realisations of elegant pieces that Mozart left unfinished.

Robert Levin fortepiano

One of today’s finest Lieder duos presents two programmes of Robert Schumann. ‘This is an album to treasure and to savour’, wrote Gramophone of their first Schumann disc, ‘and to listen to again and again’; while for the Financial Times, ‘accompanied by his regular partner in song, [Christian Gerhaher] achieves a near-perfect synthesis between words and music, singing his native German poetry with an eloquence that would be hard to surpass today, or at any time’.

Christian Gerhaher baritone; Gerold Huber piano

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