Thomas Hampson and Schubert Week

 

Today is Mozart's birthday however just this once, the day is about Schubert. Schubert Week is going on in Heidelberg, Germany! I am guessing it is timed with Schubert's birthday, Jan. 31. It takes place over the next few days at 3 p.m. Heidelberg time, 9 a.m. Buffalo time. You can find it on YouTube.

I became aware of Schubert Week over the last year. It appears to be run by Thomas Hampson. Hampson is a singer I love! Twice when he has visited Buffalo he sang one of our Erie Canal songs, the great song that goes "Oh, the E-R-ie was a-rising, and the whiskey's gettin' low, and I scarcely think we'll get a drink till we get to Buffalo!" That is a great song and he rocks it!

The one problem with watching Schubert week is that it is mostly in German with no subtitles. I can understand a lot of Hampson's German, perhaps because he is American and does not talk too fast. And he throws in a lot of English, which I get a kick out of. However there is a lot that I miss. Including jokes! The audience cracks up and applauds and I am just sitting there, fie. They should add subtitles. That is the only suggestion I have.

Otherwise Schubert Week is pretty much perfect. Up at the top of this post is the first episode of this year's Schubert Week, the one I saw yesterday. You know how YouTube videos always start with "Stay to the end, because...." I will say it in this case! Stay to the end because the fourth and last singer, a very good baritone, sings the Schubert song "Alinde." I love "Alinde"! It has this beautiful accompaniment that makes me think of a barcarole. And you do not hear it very often. I was thrilled when I saw it on the program.

I keep a notebook around when I watch Schubert Week and I jot down hacks I can use. I sing in the choir for the Latin Mass at St. Anthony's and I just joined the great choir at St. Louis Church. It is kind of a hobby gone out of control.

So I love collecting pointers. However here is one hack Hampson shared with us yesterday that we can all use in our lives. If you feel you are forgetting something -- lyrics, or maybe someone's name, or the last line to a poem you have memorized and are reciting to your friends -- look to the right.

It activates the right side of your brain, and you are more likely to remember! That is what Thomas Hampson said yesterday.

Last night at Lounge Academy at the Hyatt downtown this wisdom was passed around and discussed. Howard is going to start using it at the piano on account of you never know. We were all testing it, looking to the right, trying to do it gracefully. It can just be your eyes. You do not have to swing your entire head.

Useful information, from Schubert Week.

Only 45 minutes until the next episode...

Close Encounter with Schubert Week

Every morning I put myself through Pilates and recently the Pilates routine has become easier.

That is because I watch these singing master classes. It is amazing, the stuff you can find on YouTube. You do not have to be a singer or a pianist to appreciate them, either. It is a wonderful way to learn your way around a Schubert song. Or whatever it is they are discussing.

The video above, all it is is Schubert. It is like being in heaven!

There is this thing called Schubert Week. It takes place in Heidelberg, as far as I can figure out. There is a hall oddly named the Pierre Boulez Hall and that is where this takes place. Thomas Hampson presides over it and he talks, at least in the above video, mostly in German.

I cannot always understand German in movies or when actual Germans are talking it. But I notice that when Thomas Hampson is talking German I can usually understand him. It must be because he is American and talks just a little more slowly and clearly. 

There are a lot of things I love about this video. I will get into a lot more detail about this in some future point, but for now I just want to say one thing I appreciate about this Thomas Hampson Schubert Week master class.

It is recent!

This video streamed live on Jan. 28, 2022. I am guessing the Schubert Week is tied to Schubert's birthday which is Jan. 31. So many things were canceled because of Covid however Hampson seems to have observed Schubert Week come hell or high water. 

Not virtual. In person!

I love that!

I am so sick of virtual this and virtual that. Not only that but these other master classes I am watching, they are usually eight or 10 years ago. That can preoccupy me. I start wondering what happened to these students who are singing in the master class. I think of them being older now. I think of the singer leading the master class. What is that singer doing now?

In contrast the Schubert Week is in the here and now. That Korean singer -- I think he is Korean -- singing the first of the "Gesange des Harfners," he was singing that only a month ago. That is a song I love, by the way. It takes me back to when I was a teenager. However this is funny, I was thinking today, I know it by heart but I never took it into my head to learn anything about it. The song's poem is from Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister"; I knew that, but I never knew what that story was, or anything about it. 

I find all this fascinating. I kept leaving the mat so I could rewind the video a few minutes and pick up something I missed. I would be drawn into a discussion about the difference between "allein" and "Einsamkeit."

"It is remarkable how many people are watching," Hampson says at some point, introducing the class.

I am late to the party, but I am one!