On 10 October, the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford will host the first concert in ‘the biggest ever celebration of the life and work of Franz Schubert’. Over three weeks, all 650 songs (or thereabouts) will be performed, most of them in England’s oldest concert hall, the Holywell Music Room just around the corner from the Sheldonian.
We’re promised the greatest assembly of Schubert singers in history: they include Sir Thomas Allen, Ian Bostridge, Sarah Connolly, James Gilchrist, Robert Holl, Wolfgang Holzmair, Angelika Kirchschlager, Christopher Maltman, Mark Padmore, Christoph Prégardien — plus the cream of accompanists: Julius Drake, Graham Johnson and Roger Vignoles. There will be orchestral, chamber and piano music, too, featuring the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Doric String Quartet and Imogen Cooper, most radiant of Schubert pianists, performing the final piano sonata in B flat, D960.
There may never be another opportunity to hear all the songs in one festival.
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