Spring 2026 Concert: Schubert and Mendelssohn

Tickets for May 16 performance in Manchester

Tickets for May 17 performance in Durham

PROGRAM NOTES –  May 2026

Franz Schubert may be the most prolific and accomplished songwriter of all time – move over Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Paul McCartney! Austrian 19th c. composer Franz Schubert (1797-1828) composed over 600 songs with piano and over 1,000 total works in his short lifetime: nine symphonies (including the Unfinished #8, The Great in C Major #9), operas, a large body of piano and chamber music (the well-known Trout Quintet), song cycles Die Schöne Müllerin and Winterreise ) and the beloved Ave Maria. He is credited with the birth of the idiomatic German art song genre “Lieder” which benefited from the emergence of the piano as a major instrument. Suffering from manic depression and syphilis, Schubert died at age 31 years.  He is now regarded as one of the greatest and most original composers of the 19th c. Romantic era in music. However, his reputation didn’t emerge until after his death when his music was championed by Schumann and then embraced by Mendelssohn, Liszt and Brahms. 

Vienna was the hub for the Classical style (1750-1820) at the turn of the 19th century and the home for Salieri, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. Schubert was the only native Viennese. At age seven, he met Salieri, then court music director and Vienna’s leading composer, and sang in the chapel with lessons in violin, singing, organ and composition. Shortly thereafter he began to write songs, string quartets and piano pieces. At age sixteen he entered the Imperial Royal Seminary and learned works of both the Viennese masters and their Baroque predecessors.    Mozart was a favorite, but Beethoven, with his harmonic audacity and juxtapositions of keys, also had an important influence. Schubert learned the “lingua Franca” of the Classical composers: clarity, regular phrase structure, and form. But as an early Romantic, he broke these boundaries and cultivated a deeply personal sense of expression. His became a style of overarching lyricism – melody combined with daring harmonic structures, so apparent in his final Mass in E-Flat.

Mass in E-Flat (#6) was penned in 1828 less than six months before his death. Of the six masses Schubert wrote, this one, a  Missa Solemnis (solemn mass), is a setting of the Latin liturgy in a grand and celebratory style utilizing a large choir and orchestra and five soloists!    Ambitious and symphonic in scope, it is considered the “swansong” of Schubert’s career – an experience of beauty and intensity. The first performance of the mass occurred in 1829 at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Alsergrund, Austria, and was conducted by his brother Ferdinand.     There is no known commission or specific liturgical function. 

The opening Kyrie follows the classic ABA form, though no soloists are employed in the Christe Eleison section. We are introduced to the composer’s signature modulation to remotely related keys (in this case,  the III/VI chords in the home key of E-Flat Major). The Gloria movement continues with harmonic contrasts and culminates with a large “Cum Sancto Spiritu” fugue based on J.S. Bach’s E Major Fugue Book 2 from 48 Preludes and Fugues. There are several omissions of text in the Credo. Speculation remains that, while Schubert was deeply religious, he was unable to align with the prevailing Catholic doctrine of the day. Thus, he freely “edited” the mass text and omitted several parts of the Credo  text in all six of his mass settings. There was musical convenience too: while the Kyrie text had four words and Gloria had eighty-four,  Credo had 162 words! The Credo finishes with a grand fugue “Et vitam venturi” in the style of Haydn. Romantic chord progressions and modulations continue in the Sanctus leading us into the Benedictus, an unusual interchange between solo and choral textures. We return to another old style fugue in the Agnus Dei movement. The final sublime Dona Nobis Pacem closes the mass with a longed-for simplicity and serenity.   

PSF