The trilogy created by the Austrian composer two months before his death will be performed on Tuesday

 

As part of its piano concerts, the Auditorio de Tenerife programmed the last concert by pianist Paul Lewis dedicated to the complete sonatas of Franz Schubert. The English musician will return to the Chamber Hall next Tuesday (29th) at 7.30 p.m. The tickets are on sale for €15, €5 for those under 30. Check the special discounts for students; several discounts are available.

In this fourth and final programme, Sonata No. 19 in C minor opens the trilogy Schubert composed just two months before his death. He wanted to dedicate it to composer and pianist Hummel. Of great renown, Schubert was aware that he had taken up the baton from Beethoven, who had died a year earlier.

These three sonatas complement one another. The D958 is the most turbulent and impassioned of the three pieces, exhibiting an intimate lyricism characteristic of the composer, especially in its slow movements. Its first movement is of colossal power, contrasted with the almost mythical calmness of its adagio.

On the contrary, the sonata in A Major D959 seems to detail the composer's circumstances in a biographical manner, conveying a bucolic and superhuman peace that is sometimes transformed into drama and despair. Of large proportions, its second movement is the most moving, with a melancholic barcarolle in which the composer seems to bid farewell to the earthly realm with absolute serenity.

Lastly, Sonata D960 in B-flat major is the most subdued of all. Endlessly serene and full of contrasts, it constitutes a very mature work of great compositional expansiveness that provided the definitive finale to his repertoire of pieces created for piano.

The complete piano sonatas by Schubert take us on a unique and heart-breaking journey through the last 12 years of his life, from the charming lyricism of the early sonatas to the transcendent creativity of the last masterpieces and the harrowing moments of despair when his health began to decline.

Schubert's sonatas express some of the most essential elements of human experience with frankness and sincerity: longing, consolation, despair, joy, loss, nostalgia, and hope.

Paul Lewis is a renowned performer of the Central European piano repertoire. His performances and recordings of Beethoven and Schubert have received unanimous positive acclaim worldwide. Lewis was awarded a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his services to music, and his musical approach has earned him followers worldwide.

He has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the Philharmonic Orchestras Berlin, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestras of New York and Los Angeles, the Symphony Orchestras of Chicago and London, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus. His close relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra led to his appointment as a Koussevitzky Artist 2020 at Tanglewood.

He has received awards such as Instrumentalist of the Year of the Royal Philharmonic Society, two Edison, three Gramophone, Diapason d'Or de l'Annee, the South Bank Show Classical Music Award, and honorary degrees from the universities of Liverpool, Edge Hill and Southampton.

The tickets are available on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Check the special discounts for students, unemployed people and large families.