Concert Program III

1820–1830, Classical Twilight

In their final years, Beethoven and Schubert produced works of unparalleled importance to Western music history. Beethoven’s late works demonstrated such far-reaching vision that the composer himself conceded to his contemporaries, “They are not for you, but for a later age.” During this same period, Schubert quietly but assuredly created a musical language of newfound expressive intensity. Concert Program III brings together valedictory statements by these two giants, each written a year before the composer’s death: Beethoven’s final string quartet and Schubert’s epic Winterreise.