Kirshbaum Demler & Associates www.kirshdem.com
SIR ANDRÁS SCHIFF:
THE LAST SONATAS
Beginning in North America
February 15 – March 15, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JANUARY 22, 2015
New York, NY— Sir András Schiff has distinguished himself throughout the course of an exceptional international career that has spanned over 40 years. His latest musical odyssey, The Last Sonatas, is a project of three recital programs, comprising the three final sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. The cycle spans the course of the next two seasons, with the complete series slated for New York’s Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles’s Disney Hall, San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Hall, Washington Performing Arts’ Strathmore Hall, The Vancouver Recital Society and University Musical Society of The University of Michigan. Additional recitals are scheduled in Napa, La Jolla, Santa Fe, Scottsdale and Kansas City. Further plans include bringing The Last Sonatas to international venues such as the Salzburg Festival, as well as to Berlin, Lisbon and Barcelona.
Indisputably one of the most prominent proponents of the keyboard works of J.S. Bach, his last U.S. appearances included a cycle of six programs heard in their entirety in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. Alongside this unparalleled project he performed the cycle of 32 Beethoven Sonatas, a project he began in 2004, in 20 cities worldwide. This included a live recording of the complete cycle in the Zurich Tonhalle.
Sir András Schiff has established a prolific discography, and since 1997 has been an exclusive artist for ECM New Series and producer Manfred Eicher. Recordings for ECM include the complete solo piano music of Beethoven and Janácek; two solo albums of Schumann piano pieces; his second recordings of the Bach Partitas, the Goldberg Variations, and the Well Tempered Clavier, Books I and II; and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. The Diabelli Variations were uniquely recorded on two instruments: a Bechstein piano from 1921 and an original fortepiano from Vienna 1820, which dates from the place and time of this great work. The pianist completed a recording in July 2014 at Beethovenhaus, Bonn, on the Franz Brodmann Fortepiano that was also used for the Diabelli album. His upcoming all-Schubert disc features Sonata in B (D960), Sonata in G (D894), Moments Musicaux (D780) and the Impromptus (D935).
In June 2014, he was awarded a Knighthood by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in the 2014 Birthday Honours.
For Sir András Schiff’s full biography, please click here.
SIR ANDRÁS SCHIFF – THE LAST SONATAS
WINTER 2015 CONCERT DATES:
February 15, 2015 – Davies Symphony Hall – San Francisco, CA – Program I
February 16, 2015 – Copia Theater – Napa, CA – Program I
February 18, 2015 – Walt Disney Concert Hall – Los Angeles, CA – Program I
February 20, 2015 – Stern Auditorium – La Jolla, CA – Program II
February 22, 2015 – Davies Symphony Hall – San Francisco, CA – Program II
February 24, 2015 – Lensic Theatre – Santa Fe, NM – Program I
February 26, 2015 – Virginia G. Piper Theatre – Scottsdale, AZ – Program I
March 1, 2015 – Chan Centre for the Performing Arts – Vancouver, BC – Program I
March 4, 2015 – Walt Disney Concert Hall – Los Angeles, CA – Program II
March 6, 2015 – Folly Theater – Kansas City, MO – Program I
March 8, 2015 – Symphony Center – Chicago, IL – Program I
March 10, 2015 – Carnegie Hall – New York, NY – Program I
March 12, 2015 – Carnegie Hall – New York, NY – Program II
March 15, 2015 – Strathmore Hall – Washington, DC – Program I
PROGRAM I
HAYDN Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI: 50 (1794)
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109 (1820)
MOZART Sonata in C Major, K. 545 (1788)
SCHUBERT Sonata in C minor, D. 958 (1828)
PROGRAM II
MOZART Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 570 (1789)
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110 (1821)
HAYDN Sonata in D Major, Hob. XVI:51 (1795)
SCHUBERT Sonata in A Major, D. 959 (1828)
Critical acclaim:
SCHUBERT:
“…The result here was a rare communion of player and instrument.”
– The Sunday Telegraph
HAYDN:
“Mr. Schiff performed the late C major Piano Sonata with an eloquence that cut through the rhetoric of modern virtuoso playing.”
– The New York Times
MOZART:
“But so successful was the evening that the critic can only throw up his hands, wish you had been there, and quote Ira Gershwin’s endearing tombstone inscription: “Words Fail Me.”
– The New York Times
BEETHOVEN:
“Schiff’s Beethoven is intimate… He gives the impression of slowing down time, so that a listener can get inside a phrase or measure while never losing the larger picture.”
– The Los Angeles Times
