Tales of Beyond - Magic, Myths and Mortals
11th - 26th October 2019
The 18th Oxford Lieder Festival will explore life, death, and the mysterious areas between and beyond. Sprites and nymphs cause mayhem and mischief, while legends abound from Greco-Roman sagas to the Lorelei and the Erlking. Storytelling with the Crick Crack Club, a ghost tour, a magic show and more all complement the myriad concerts, masterclasses and study events over a packed fortnight. International stars and prize-winning young artists will take us on a captivating journey through magic, myths and mortals.
Festival Passes are ON SALE NOW from £380.
Tickets are available via our BOOKING PAGE or from each event page below.
Please double check the event pages for specific ticket information.
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Schubert Circle Prioirty Booking: from 14 May 2019
Friends Priority Booking: from 28 May 2019
General Booking: from 10am on 18 June 2019
Friday 11th October
11:30 AM
1. Trolls, Myths and Mountains: Claire Booth, Christopher Glynn, Daniel Grimley & Heather O'Donoghue
11 Oct 2019 11:30 | Jacqueline du Pré Music Building
Nordic legends, Norse gods, trolls and magical landscapes: a riveting exploration of these influences on the music of Edvard Grieg begins the Festival. In the first part of this event, Heather O’Donoghue will introduce key stories and characters from Old Norse myths, interspersed with songs and piano music. Daniel Grimley, who led last year’s Nordic Song day, then introduces ‘...
3:30 PM
2. Beowulf: Jess Dandy & Dylan Perez
11 Oct 2019 15:30 | Holywell Music Room
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Cheryl Frances-Hoad, one of today’s most exciting composers, as our first Associate Composer, generously supported by the Nicholas John Trust. Over a three-year partnership, in addition to several commissions we will programme a number of her existing works, beginning today with her colourful settings of extracts from Seamus Heaney...
5:00 PM
3. The Kalevala: Where the Bear Sleeps
11 Oct 2019 17:00 | Holywell Music Room
Nick Hennessey is widely acknowledged as one of the UK’s leading contemporary storytellers. In 2000 Nick entered the world championship of epic-singing in Espoo near Helsinki, performing The Kalevala (the Finnish national epic) to the Finns, in English. And he won! Today, he delivers us into the deep, snow-filled forests of the Finnish far north. In this world created from shards of egg-s...
7:30 PM
4. Schubert and Grieg: Camilla Tilling, Neal Davies, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Jac van Steen
11 Oct 2019 19:30 | Town Hall
Thrilling orchestral songs with two top singers; BBC National Orchestra of Wales with the leading Dutch conductor Jac van Steen; songs of myths, legends and Nordic landscapes: a spectacular opening-night concert in the splendour of Oxford’s Town Hall. Music by Schubert includes part of the incidental music of Rosamunde, as well as songs from mythology including ‘Prometheus’...Saturday 12th October
10:30 AM
5. Family Event: The Thought Machine
12 Oct 2019 10:30 | Holywell Music Room
A magical Thought Machine lets us use our imagination to go anywhere… Dynamic singer-pianist ensemble Songspiel, together with hand shadowgrapher Drew Colby, introduce a range of weird and wistful characters from anxious Viking warriors to the superhero Hamster Man. With music by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, poetry by Kate Wakeling from her award-winning collection Moon Juice, and hand-formed sh...
11:00 AM
7. Carl Loewe - Master Storyteller: Christina Gansch, Martin Hässler, Richard Stokes & Laura Tunbridge
12 Oct 2019 11:00 | Jacqueline du Pré Music Building
‘For many years, Carl Loewe, our most outstanding ballad composer and quite likely the most productive one in this genre, completely disappeared from the collective memory of the public at large, this even though hardly any leading music expert would dispute his importance.’ This assessment by Walther Wossidlo is more than 100 years old – but misperceptions about ...
11:45 AM
6. Family Event: The Thought Machine Workshop
Participation Events Families & Children
12 Oct 2019 11:45 | Holywell Music Room
Drew Colby will give a hand shadow workshop following on from the performance at 10.30. Places are limited and booking is essential. See earlier event for full details.
5:30 PM
8. Fantastical Worlds: Ema Nikolovska & Gary Beecher
12 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
Ema Nikolovska and Gary Beecher are winners of this year’s Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform, which attracts the very best emerging talent. In their showcase recital, they explore spells and enchantments, with music by Sibelius, Medtner, Liszt, Alison Bauld and Donald Swann, and including texts by Shakespeare and J.R.R. Tolkien.
7:30 PM
9. Stories in Song: Stéphane Degout & Cédric Tiberghien
12 Oct 2019 19:30 | Holywell Music Room
Stéphane Degout is today’s leading French baritone, equally acclaimed for his interpretations of the French Mélodie and the German Lied. He is joined by the pianist Cédric Tiberghien, whose latest disc of Liszt piano works was described as ‘breathtaking’ (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘exemplary’ (The Guardian). They present a programme that includes...Sunday 13th October
11:00 AM
10. Clara Schumann - Rethinking the Myth: Tara Erraught, Kitty Whately, James Baillieu, Joe Davies & Natasha Loges
13 Oct 2019 11:00 | Jacqueline du Pré Music Building
Presented in association with the Royal College of Music Clara (Wieck) Schumann, born 200 years ago this year, was an extraordinary figure: overshadowed in the history books by her husband Robert, but in reality a musical powerhouse in her own right. An inspired composer, brilliant and famous pianist, muse to Brahms and others, and mother of eight children, she led a long, complex ...
5:00 PM
12. Clara Schumann, Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Edvard Grieg: Ivana Gavrić
13 Oct 2019 17:00 | Saint John the Evangelist
Pianist Ivana Gavrić has garnered praise for her ‘impressive, insightful’ playing (Washington Post), that is ‘instinctively attuned to the moods and shades of the music’ (Daily Telegraph). She performs works by the masterful pianist-composer Clara Schumann, as well as works by Edvard Grieg and Cheryl Frances-Hoad. Watch Ivana Gavrić playing Grieg: [youtub...
7:30 PM
13. Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann: Christoph Prégardien & Sholto Kynoch
13 Oct 2019 19:30 | Saint John the Evangelist
Christoph Prégardien’s recitals are always a highlight of the Festival, with the Guardian describing previous appearances as ‘peerless’ and ‘a revelation’. He and pianist Sholto Kynoch present a first half of Schubert songs, including some of the great settings of Goethe and Schubert’s friend Mayrhofer. They then perform Schumann’s profoundly mov...Monday 14th October
10:30 AM
14. A Magical Mystery Tour
Last Few Tickets!
14 Oct 2019 10:30 | Pitt Rivers Museum
A guided tour of the Pitt Rivers Museum’s magical artefacts begins our magic-themed day. Two groups will each enjoy a 30-minute guided tour from one of the Museum’s curators, and 30 minutes to wander the Museum more generally ahead of public opening. (Booking essential)
11:45 AM
15. Magic, Myth and Monsters: Policing the Borders of Belief
14 Oct 2019 11:45 | Holywell Music Room
Focussing on early modern trials, from that of Magdeleine d'Auvermont, who dreamed herself pregnant while her husband was away fighting in the wars, through to that of Louis Gaufridi, burned as both a witch and a magician, Wes Williams explores what courts, confessions, expert witnesses, and common conceptions can tell us about how societies police the frontiers of the credible, the borders...
1:05 PM
16. The Fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen: Lotte Betts-Dean & Joseph Havlat
14 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Winners of this year’s Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform, Lotte Betts-Dean and Joseph Havlat are already being hailed as bright stars of the song world. Their programme of Danish fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen includes music by Prokofiev, Schumann, Nielsen and even Kate Bush.
3:00 PM
17. Alchemy, Magic and the Legend of Faust
14 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Shulman Auditorium, The Queen's College
Alexandra Lloyd and Emma Smith discuss the history of Faust – the man himself, and the role of alchemy and magic in the legends that grew around him from the sixteenth century onwards. Moving from German origins to Christopher Marlowe, into the German Romantic writers and the wider revival of interest in the twentieth century, this fascinating discussion is interspersed with Faust setting...
5:30 PM
18. Nordic Magic: Martin Sturfält
14 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
The acclaimed Swedish pianist Martin Sturfält performs the magnificent, colourful ‘Northern Lights’ sonata by the Estonian composer Eduard Tubin, inspired by the mythical and magical notions attributed in Sami culture to the Aurora Borealis. He also performs two works by Franz Liszt, inspired by Lenau’s Faust: ‘Der nächtliche Zug’ (‘The night-time p...
7:30 PM
19. Magical Mysteries: Katharina Ruckgaber, Ashley Riches & Sholto Kynoch
14 Oct 2019 19:30 | Holywell Music Room
Expect spells to be cast, to be bewitched by love, to be enchanted by nature and the night and to be surrounded by mischievous, magical figures. Katharina Ruckgaber and Ashley Riches explore the literal and symbolic appearances of magic in song, with music by Mozart, Schubert, Loewe and others. The Faust legend features again, not least in Schubert’s seminal ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade&r...Tuesday 15th October
11:00 AM
20. Holywell Cemetery
Sold Out - Waiting List Only
15 Oct 2019 11:00 | Holywell Music Room
A stone’s throw from the Holywell Music Room is the beautifully rambling Holywell Cemetery. Many well-known figures are buried there including the famous Sanskrit scholar and philologist Max Müller, the son of Wilhelm Müller who was the poet of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. William Whyte, Chair of the Oxford Preservation Trust and the Oxford His...
1:05 PM
21. A Young Man's Exhortation: Ben Johnson & Roger Vignoles
15 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
A star duo performs a recital of English song, including Michael Tippett’s ‘Cantata’ for tenor and piano, Boyhood’s End, written in 1943 for Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears. Gerald Finzi’s settings of Thomas Hardy in his cycle A Young Man’s Exhortation dwell on the passage of time and the twilight of life, summed up in its closing words: ‘And mourn not...
3:00 PM
22. Who Am I When I Am Dead?
15 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Weston Library: Lecture Theatre
We spend the afternoon in late-medieval France, where cultural representations of the dead proliferated, functioning not only as memento mori to encourage moral living but also as imaginative experiments posing questions about what constitutes human identity and who defines a person when they die. Helen Swift, author of the acclaimed book Representing the Dead, considers the relationship betwee...
5:30 PM
23. Death and the Maiden: Doric String Quartet
15 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
Now established as one of the world’s pre-eminent quartets, the Doric Quartet makes a welcome return to the Festival to play Schubert’s peerless ‘Death and the Maiden’ quartet. Composed in 1824 the central set of variations takes the song 'Der Tod und das Mädchen' as its theme and the piece is widely regarded as one of Schubert's great chamber music mast...
7:30 PM
24. Songs and Dances of Death: Thomas Oliemans & Malcolm Martineau
15 Oct 2019 19:30 | Holywell Music Room
The superb Dutch baritone Thomas Oliemans and pianist par-excellence Malcolm Martineau return to the Festival in a programme that includes Mussorgsky’s transcendental Songs and Dances of Death, as well as Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’, songs by Ravel, and Saint-Saëns’s thrilling Danse Macabre. Watch Thomas Oliemans and Malcolm Martineau perfor...
10:00 PM
25. In Paradisum: The Carice Singers
15 Oct 2019 22:00 | New College Chapel
In a magical way to end the day, the acclaimed Carice Singers perform a programme of ethereally expressive music which views death as only the start of our journey into paradise. Purcell’s Funeral Sentences are followed by Gesualdo’s Responsories for Holy Saturday, Grieg’s Four Psalms (his final composition), and In Paradisum by the Estonian composer Galina Grigorjeva. The ...Wednesday 16th October
1:05 PM
26. Sibelius and Rachmaninov: Jacques Imbrailo & Alisdair Hogarth
16 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Jacques Imbrailo, recent star of the Royal Opera's acclaimed production of Billy Budd, and Alisdair Hogarth make a much-anticipated return to the Festival in a wonderful programme of songs by Sibelius and Rachmaninoff, including the high drama of ‘Svarta Rosor’ (‘Black Roses’) and the haunting ‘V molchan’i nochi taynoy’ (‘In the sile...
3:00 PM
27. Nosferatu: film screening with live performance by Neil Brand
16 Oct 2019 15:00 | T.S. Eliot Theatre, Merton College
A rare opportunity to experience F.W. Murnau’s 1922 cinematic masterpiece, Nosferatu, with live piano accompaniment performed by Neil Brand. The ‘doyen of silent film pianists’ (Radio 4), Neil Brand is a Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music, a regular presenter on BBC Radio and TV, and is widely regarded as one of the world’s finest improvising piano accompan...
5:45 PM
28. The Ghost Trio: Phoenix Piano Trio
16 Oct 2019 17:45 | Holywell Music Room
In this potent, single-work concert, the Phoenix Piano Trio performs Beethoven’s extraordinary ‘Ghost’ Trio, with its famous slow movement that provided themes for Beethoven’s sketches for a projected opera of Macbeth. Please note the slightly later start time of 5.45pm for this concert, to allow time for audience members to also attend the earlier film screening...
7:30 PM
29. Der Doppelgänger: Maria Forsström & Matti Hirvonen
16 Oct 2019 19:30 | New College Chapel
In the candle-lit splendour of New College Chapel, the great Swedish duo of Maria Forsström and Matti Hirvonen – who have given inspirational recitals at recent Festivals – present a programme of ghosts and graves, with haunting music by composers from Schubert (including his electrifying ‘Erlkönig’) to Rachmaninov and Britten.
8:45 PM
30. Ghost Trail: Bill Spectre
16 Oct 2019 20:45 | New College Chapel
Bill Spectre’s famous Ghost Trail (voted in the top ten of its kind in the world) is a fun, informative and spooky way to explore Oxford’s history, on the sites of hauntings and ghost sightings. Tonight’s specially designed tour begins at New College after the earlier concert, and takes in some city centre landmarks before ending back on Broad Street. A spine-tingling end to t...Thursday 17th October
1:05 PM
31. The Schumanns: Alessandro Fisher & Ashok Gupta
17 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Alessandro Fisher is a former Oxford Lieder Young Artist and current BBC New Generation Artist. He and prize-winning pianist Ashok Gupta present songs by Clara Schumann as well as Robert Schumann’s settings of Heine in his Liederkreis Op.24. They also include Schumann settings of Eduard Mörike, ahead of our afternoon study event exploring this fascinating and significant poet, and th...
3:00 PM
32. Mörike, Magic Realist: Ray Ockenden
17 Oct 2019 15:00 | Ashmolean Museum: Lecture Theatre
Eduard Mörike was a significant poet for many composers, most particularly in the songs of Hugo Wolf. Ray Ockenden, Emeritus Fellow in German at Wadham College, talks about Mörike’s life, his poetic approach, his love of music and his fantastical imaginary creations, ahead of this evening’s concert.
4:00 PM
33. Schools Project Concert
Free Events Families & Children
17 Oct 2019 16:00 | Ashmolean Museum
Directed and introduced by John Webb Each year, Oxford Lieder works with local schools in an in-depth creative project where children, under the guidance of the inspirational workshop leader John Webb, write the words and music of their own song cycle. They take initial inspiration from a trip to the Ashmolean Museum and present the resulting composition in a free performance in the Ashmolea...
5:30 PM
34. Mozart's Journey to Prague: Lucy Hall, Jonathan Stone & Sholto Kynoch
17 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
In November 1787, Mozart returned triumphant to Prague for the premiere of Don Giovanni. His trip there was brought colourfully to life by Eduard Mörike in his famous novella Mozart’s Journey to Prague. For this concert, the great A major violin sonata K526, written at the same time as Don Giovanni, and songs of the same period are heard within an abridged retelling of Mörike&rs...
7:30 PM
35. Things That Go Bump In The Night: Katherine Broderick, Marcus Farnsworth & Sholto Kynoch
17 Oct 2019 19:30 | Holywell Music Room
The final discs of our world-first project to record the complete songs of Hugo Wolf are released this year. To celebrate this, we bring two leading artists from the series in a programme of Wolf’s songs of elves, ghosts, sprites and mythical figures: by turns exciting, witty and moving, and always with Wolf’s trademark genius for word painting. The poetry of Eduard Mörike &nda...Friday 18th October
11:00 AM
36. Future Song: Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Ross Griffey, Martin Suckling & Stephen Newbould
18 Oct 2019 11:00 | St Edmund Hall: The Old Dining Hall
Composers Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Ross Griffey and Martin Suckling, all of whom have newly-commissioned works being premiered in the Festival, take part in a discussion led by Stephen Newbould, CEO of Spitalfields Music and formerly of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. They discuss their own work, but also wider questions of style, perception and reception of new music and song in particular. ...
1:05 PM
37. Nature's Beauty: James Newby & Simon Lepper
18 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Presented in association with BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists The exceptional young baritone James Newby, a current BBC New Generation Artist, joins Simon Lepper for a programme full of flora and fauna, including Poulenc’s witty Le bestiaire and songs by Brahms, Schubert, Mahler and Finzi. Watch James Newby sing Poulenc's La Grenouillère: [youtube url=ht...
3:30 PM
38. Evolution of a Song Cycle
18 Oct 2019 15:30 | Museum of Natural History: Lecture Theatre
Presented in association with the Museum of Natural History In a discussion led by John Holmes (editor of the Museum’s anthology Guests of Time), composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad, soprano Carola Darwin, poet Kelley Swain and scientist James Neenan talk about the collaborative process behind a Darwin-inspired song cycle with new poetry and music, ahead of this evening’s cham...
5:45 PM
39. Endless Forms Most Beautiful: Carola Darwin & Gildas Quartet
18 Oct 2019 17:45 | Museum of Natural History
Our newly-appointed Associate Composer, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, has written a cycle of songs for soprano and string quartet, Endless Forms Most Beautiful, setting poetry about evolution and the environment by the Museum of Natural History’s three poets-in-residence in 2016: Kelley Swain, John Barnie and Steven Matthews. The Gildas Quartet also performs Fantasias and Chaconne by Purcell. E...
8:00 PM
40. Fairy Tales - Stanford to Sondheim: Kitty Whately & Simon Lepper
18 Oct 2019 20:00 | Holywell Music Room
Kitty Whately and Simon Lepper take us on a dramatic journey from ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ – Stanford’s thrilling setting of Keats – to Rebecca Clarke’s spine-chilling ‘The Seal Man’. They include songs by Samuel Barber, alongside a new work by American composer Juliana Hall and librettist Caitlin Vincent, before concluding with an effervescent ...Saturday 19th October
10:45 AM
41. Schubert & Mortality: Imogen Cooper, James Gilchrist, Anna Tilbrook & Lorraine Byrne Bodley
19 Oct 2019 10:45 | Holywell Music Room
10.45am - 11.20am Internationally acclaimed for her interpretations of Schubert, pianist Imogen Cooper begins her trilogy of the composer’s last three piano with the darkly turbulent C minor Sonata, D958.NB: the other two performances at 5.15pm and 10pm are ticketed separately. 11.30am - 12.30pm Unresting Death: On Schubert’s Final Years. Eminent Schuber...
5:15 PM
42. Schubert Sonata in A Major: Imogen Cooper
19 Oct 2019 17:15 | Saint John the Evangelist
In his penultimate piano sonata, the Sonata in A major D959, Schubert uses some of his most positive and uplifting music to frame a slow movement of shocking grief and desperate anger. A Day Pass is available for the whole 'Schubert and (Im)mortality' day for £90, giving access to the full study day and all concerts. Watch Imogen Cooper play Schubert's Hungarian M...
7:30 PM
43. The Fair Maid of the Mill: Roderick Williams, Marta Fontanals-Simmons & Christopher Glynn
Some seating areas sold out
19 Oct 2019 19:30 | Saint John the Evangelist
Roderick Williams begins his residency at the Festival, which will include three concerts, a talk and a masterclass, performing Schubert’s great cycle Die schöne Müllerin in Jeremy Sams’s sparkling English translation. Before this, rising-star mezzo-soprano Marta Fontanals-Simmons gives the world premiere of The Tuning, a new cycle by the acclaimed Scottish composer M...
10:00 PM
44. Schubert Sonata in B Flat Major: Imogen Cooper
19 Oct 2019 22:00 | Saint John the Evangelist
An exhilarating day draws to a close with a performance of one of Schubert’s best-loved works, his expansive and life-affirming final sonata: the Sonata in B flat major D960. A Day Pass is available for the whole 'Schubert and (Im)mortality' day for £90, giving access to the full study day and all concerts.Sunday 20th October
10:00 AM
45. Cushion Concerts for Under 5s and Over 5s: Ted Black, Rachel Fright
20 Oct 2019 10:00 | Jacqueline du Pré Music Building
Presented in association with the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building A fun exploration of music and words, the human voice and the piano, singing and playing, for all the family. This is part of the well-established Cushion Concerts series at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building. The monthly Cushion Concerts introduce a wide variety of music and instruments to children ...
10:00 AM
46. Roderick Williams in Conversation
Sold Out - Waiting List Only
20 Oct 2019 10:00 | Ashmolean Museum
Philip Bullock interviews Roderick Williams on his life, career and favourite music over coffee and pastries, in the beautiful rooftop restaurant of the Ashmolean Museum.
11:00 AM
47. Last Supper in Pompeii
20 Oct 2019 11:00 | Ashmolean Museum: Lecture Theatre
Paul Roberts is the Sackler Keeper of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum and is the curator of their exhibition, Last Supper in Pompeii. He gives a special talk on the exhibition in the Lecture Theatre from 11am, followed by a visit to the exhibition itself from midday. Presented in assocation with the Ashmolean Museum
2:30 PM
48. Housman's Myth-Making
20 Oct 2019 14:30 | St John's College Auditorium
Please note this event is FREE for ticketholders of 'On Wenlock Edge' at 3pm. As part of his attempt to separate his poetry and his profession as a classicist, A. E. Housman downplayed classical references in his verse. Jennifer Ingleheart, Professor of Latin at the University of Durham, explores the significance of some of his classical myths and allusi...
3:00 PM
49. On Wenlock Edge: Daniel Norman, Sholto Kynoch & Brodsky Quartet
Sold Out - Waiting List Only
Chamber Music Early Evening Film Screening
20 Oct 2019 15:00 | St John's College Auditorium
In 2014, Oxford Lieder commissioned an animated film of Schubert’s Erlkönig from puppeteer Jeremy Hamway-Bidgood that has been viewed nearly 5 million times! Jeremy has now created a new animated film for Ralph Vaughan Williams’s settings of Housman, On Wenlock Edge, designed for live performance. In the newly refurbished auditorium at St John’s College, we are thril...
4:15 PM
50. Music of Ancient Greece
20 Oct 2019 16:15 | St John's College Auditorium
Please note this event is FREE for ticketholders of 'On Wenlock Edge' at 3pm. Armand D’Angour, Professor of Classics at Jesus College and former professional cellist, discusses the music of ancient Greece: what do we know, how did it sound, and how did words and music interact? Watch 'Rediscovering Ancient Greek Music', introduced by A...
7:00 PM
51. A Night at The Museum: Benjamin Appl, Graham Johnson, Rowan Pierce, Nathaniel Mander & Prof. Michael Scott
Some seating areas sold out
20 Oct 2019 19:00 | Ashmolean Museum
Presented in association with Classics for All One of the highlights of this year’s Festival is an evening in multiple parts at the Ashmolean Museum. In the Randolph Sculpture Gallery, Benjamin Appl and Graham Johnson explore songs of classical mythology, surrounded by Greco-Roman statues. Upstairs, in the rooftop restaurant, Michael Scott – well-known Classicist and pr...Monday 21st October
11:15 AM
52. An Arctic Exploration: Ross Griffey
21 Oct 2019 11:15 | The Weston Library: Lecture Theatre
Presented in association with the Bodleian Libraries Ahead of the premiere of his new work this evening, composer Ross Griffey talks about his experiences as an Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellow at the Bodleian Libraries and the inspirations behind his songs of winter journeying and Arctic exploration, in particular the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera. &...
1:05 PM
53. Invitation Au Voyage: Marie-Laure Garnier & Célia Oneto Bensaid
21 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Presented in association with the Académie Orsay-Royaumont and the Institut Français Royaume Uni Marie-Laure Garnier returns to the Festival following a sensational performance of Debussy songs in 2018, this time with pianist Célia Oneto Bensaid. Their concert is under the banner of the Académie Orsay-Royaumont, a year-long course for exceptional young d...
3:00 PM
54. In Search of An Ending: Laura Tunbridge
21 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College
With two masterpieces ahead of us this evening, Laura Tunbridge explores the links, sometimes ignored and sometimes overstated, between Schubert and Beethoven in their final years.
5:30 PM
55. Beethoven Op. 130: Albion Quartet
21 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
The electrifying Albion Quartet - who gave a stunning performance of the Dvořák Piano Quintet with Christopher Glynn at the 2018 Festival - play Beethoven’s late masterpiece, the String Quartet in B flat major Op.130. They perform it with Beethoven’s original finale, the famous ‘Grosse Fuge’, that is still as arresting today as it was when it was first h...
8:00 PM
56. The Winter Journey: Roderick Williams, Nicholas Mogg, Christopher Glynn
21 Oct 2019 20:00 | Saint John the Evangelist
Roderick Williams continues his survey of the Schubert cycles, in English translations by Jeremy Sams, with pianist Christopher Glynn. Tonight’s ‘Winter Journey’ is preceded by a new cycle, World of Ice, commissioned from Ross Griffey, whom Festival audiences met last year during his events as an Albi Rosenthal Visiting Fellow at the Bodleian Libraries. He sets texts base...Tuesday 22nd October
10:00 AM
57. Masterclass with Roderick Williams
Sold Out - Waiting List Only
22 Oct 2019 10:00 | The Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College
Roderick Williams works with winners of the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Platform. All are welcome.
1:05 PM
58. Schéhérazade: Caitlin Hulcup & Gary Matthewman
22 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
We are delighted to welcome back the renowned mezzo-soprano Caitlin Hulcup and leading pianist Gary Matthewman. At the heart of their programme is Ravel’s vibrant and evocative Schéhérazade, conjuring the exotic world of the Thousand and One Nights, the Persian king Shahryar and his young bride Scheherazade. Other songs of queens, knights and mystical lands feature, by Schum...
3:00 PM
59. Knights in Shining Armour
22 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College
Daniel Godfrey, curator and collaborator on a number of exhibitions in the British Museum, including German Romantic prints and drawings from an English private collection (2011), discusses the imagery of ruins, knights and medieval myth in German Romantic art.
5:30 PM
60. The Shepherd on the Rock: Elin Manahan Thomas, Joseph Shiner & Jocelyn Freeman
22 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
One of Schubert’s last works, Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (‘The Shepherd on the Rock’) was commissioned in 1828 as a showpiece for the soprano Anna Milder and has remained a popular staple of the repertoire ever since. Renowned soprano Elin Manahan Thomas performs this, in a programme that also includes works by Rossini, other songs by Schubert, and Schumann’s Fantasiest&uum...
7:30 PM
61. Forest Twilight: Sophie Karthäuser, Stephan Loges & Eugene Asti
22 Oct 2019 19:30 | Holywell Music Room
A star trio performs songs by Schubert, Brahms and Mendelssohn, with poems of knights in ruined castles and twilit encounters in mysterious forests. They include Schumann’s Liederkreis Op.39, setting the poetry of Eichendorff, as a perfect complement to these songs. Sophie Karthäuser, Stephan Loges and Eugene Asti are firm favourites at the Oxford Lieder Festival, and we are del...Wednesday 23rd October
11:45 AM
62. Moral Contradictions: Helen Abbott
23 Oct 2019 11:45 | Holywell Music Room
Moral Contradictions: Fables and Tales from Baudelaire and La Fontaine. Helen Abbott introduces settings of Baudelaire in song – following the recent culmination of the Baudelaire Song Project – and the Aesop-influenced poems of Jean de la Fontaine, ahead of today's lunchtime concert.
1:05 PM
63. French Fables: Jess Dandy & Sholto Kynoch
23 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Presented in association with the University of Birmingham Contralto Jess Dandy, an Oxford Lieder Young Artist, is fast emerging as one of the most exciting young singers today. Her programme features settings of Baudelaire, including the world premiere of a new song by our Associate Composer, Cheryl Frances-Hoad. She and Sholto Kynoch also perform settings of the seventeenth-centu...
3:00 PM
64. The Golden Age of Fables: Claire Ward, Guy Murgatroyd, Katherine Astbury & Katherine Hambridge
23 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College
This afternoon's event looks at the fable in France and Germany from the late 17th century through to the Napoleonic era with a focus on La Fontaine, Lessing and Florian - and a nod or two to Aesop of course. This fascinating talk is illustrated with settings of Lessing by composers including Beethoven and Haydn, performed by Claire Ward and Guy Murga...
5:30 PM
65. Schubert Quartet in G: Piatti Quartet
23 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
The prize-winning Piatti Quartet, described in the Evening Standard as ‘a young ensemble at its finest’, returns to the Festival to play Schubert’s last string quartet, the expansive and profound Quartet in G D887, written in 1826. Watch the Piatti Quartet perform the second movement of Haydn't 'Emperor' Quartet: [youtube url=https://youtu.be/VTydqw...
8:00 PM
66. Swan Song: Roderick Williams & Christopher Glynn
23 Oct 2019 20:00 | Saint John the Evangelist
Schubert’s unparalleled final songs, put together by the publisher Tobias Haslinger after the composer’s death as his ‘Swan Song’, are some of the crowning glories of the song repertoire. With these settings of Ludwig Rellstab, Heinrich Heine and Johann Seidl, Roderick Williams brings his Festival residency to an exquisite close, with pianist Christopher Glynn.
9:30 PM
67. Schubert and the Comedian Harmonists: Schubert & Co.
23 Oct 2019 21:30 | The Mad Hatter
In the convivial setting of the Mad Hatter bar on Iffley Road, the male voices of ensemble Schubert & Co. round off our Schubert focus on a high. Sociable drinking songs by Schubert fill the Mad Hatter cocktail bar, alongside uplifting music by the world-famous close harmony group of the ‘20s and ‘30s, The Comedian Harmonists. Tickets include one drink and the bar will b...Thursday 24th October
1:05 PM
69. The Rose and the Willow: Mercedes Gancedo & Beatriz Miralles
24 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Prize-winning Argentinian soprano Mercedes Gancedo and exciting young pianist Beatriz Miralles have been the Young Artists in Residence at the LIFE Victoria Festival in Barcelona. They present songs by the Spanish composer Xavier Montsalvatge and the Argentinian Alberto Ginastera. At the heart of the programme, the masterful songs of Ginastera’s compatriot Carlos Guastavino, including the...
3:00 PM
70, Les Chansons de Bilitis: Helen Abbott, Gabriella Dall'Olio & Musicians from Faculty of Music
24 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College
The erotic poems of Pierre Louÿs’s Les Chansons de Bilitis, which the author falsely claimed were translated from Ancient Greek, inspired several works by Claude Debussy. This is a rare chance to hear his Musique de scene pour les chansons de Bilitis, for two flutes, two harps and celeste, introduced and narrated by Helen Abbott. Musicians from Oxford University's Faculty of M...
5:30 PM
71. The Rite of Spring: Owen-Apekisheva Duo
24 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
The Owen-Apekisheva Duo gave a stunning performance at last year’s Festival and we are thrilled that they will return for two concerts this year. In the first of these, they perform Debussy’s Épigraphes Antiques, based on the music he had written to accompany Pierre Louÿs’s poems Les Chansons de Bilitis (see 3pm event and 8pm concert). Alongside this, we hear Strav...
8:00 PM
72. Four Last Songs: Carolyn Sampson & Joseph Middleton
24 Oct 2019 20:00 | Saint John the Evangelist
Carolyn Sampson (described by The Times as having a ‘purity of tone matched by her dramatic ability to inhabit the spirit of each song in the cycle as though it were a perfectly contained world’) and regular duo partner Joseph Middleton ('the cream of the new generation') perform songs by Haydn (Arianna a Naxos), the young Schoenberg, and Gustav Mahler. After the interval, w...Friday 25th October
1:05 PM
73. Solitude: Ilker Arcayürek & Hartmut Höll
25 Oct 2019 13:05 | Holywell Music Room
Austrian tenor Ilker Arcayürek has been described by The Guardian as ‘in a class of his own’, and Opera Now wrote of him, in their list of Top Ten Rising Stars, as a ‘golden and natural lyric tenor’. We are delighted that he will give his Festival debut with the world-renowned pianist Hartmut Höll. Their all-Schubert programme includes the Beethoven-inspired &l...
3:00 PM
74. Messiaen & Wagner
25 Oct 2019 15:00 | The Weston Library: Lecture Theatre
Ahead of an extraordinary trio of concerts this evening, Philip Bullock introduces the music of Messiaen and Wagner and the links between them, in particular exploring Messiaen’s ‘Tristan Trilogy’.
5:30 PM
75. Visions de L'Amen: Owen-Apekisheva Duo
25 Oct 2019 17:30 | Holywell Music Room
In the second of their concerts this year, the Owen-Apekisheva Duo perform Messiaen’s epic masterpiece for two pianos, Visions de l’Amen. It was written in 1943 and performed in the same year by the composer and his student and future wife, Yvonne Loriod.
7:45 PM
76. Dreams: Dorothea Röschmann & Malcolm Martineau
25 Oct 2019 19:45 | Saint John the Evangelist
Two of today’s great artists, known for their performances together on disc and in leading halls and festivals the world over, perform songs by Schubert and Schumann, together with Mahler’s glorious Rückert Lieder. They conclude tonight’s programme with Wagner’s astonishing Wesendonck Lieder, the last of which, ‘Traüme’ (‘Dreams’) s...
10:00 PM
77. Harawi - Song of Love and Death: Gweneth Ann Rand & Simon Lepper
25 Oct 2019 22:00 | Saint John the Evangelist
Setting his own texts, in the spirit of Wagner and Debussy, Messiaen’s epic song cycle Harawi was inspired by Peruvian folklore and the indigenous Quechuan language. The first of his ‘Tristan Trilogy’ (with echoes of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde), the work explores love that can only be truly fulfilled in death. Gweneth Ann Rand is an acclaimed interpreter of Messiaen and...Saturday 26th October
11:00 AM
78. The Boy's Magic Horn
26 Oct 2019 11:00 | Holywell Music Room
We explore the Grimm Brothers’ fairy-stories and wonder-tales, and the magical language of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the collection of folk poetry first published in Heidelberg. Joanna Neilly and Anthony Phelan will trace the sources and resources that reinvent German language and identity in these Heidelberg years when the Romantic movement pioneered a style for later important song poets. ...
4:30 PM
79. Duruflé Requiem: The Choir of Merton College, Olivia Warbuton, Benson Wilson & Rebecca McNaught
Some seating areas sold out
26 Oct 2019 16:30 | Merton College Chapel
The Choir of Merton College, one of Oxford’s leading chapel choirs, performs Duruflé’s wonderful Requiem, alongside short works by Judith Weir and our Associate Composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad. This concert is a popular tradition of the final day of the Festival. We are delighted that the Choir and their Director Benjamin Nicholas will be joined by Olivia Warburton, who so impre...
7:30 PM
80. Dangerous Liaisons: Louise Alder, Nikolay Borchev & Sholto Kynoch
26 Oct 2019 19:30 | Saint John the Evangelist
Love, omnipresent in song, is a dangerous game, from the fatal allure of the Lorelei to foolish dares undertaken in its name. Louise Alder and Nikolay Borchev bring the Festival to a thrilling close, with songs by Schubert, Liszt, Schumann and others. Louise Alder gave a sensational concert at the 2018 Festival, not long after her triumph at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. Belarusian barit...