Daniel Barenboim: Schubert Series, Royal Festival Hall

“The music laughs and cries at the same time. It’s happy and sad at the same time. The Schubert sonatas do everything that we, as human beings, find impossible to do without music.”
The words are Daniel Barenboim's, describing why he is so drawn to these piano works, which he recently recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, and will now perform in a series of four concerts at the Royal Festival Hall, as part of the Southbank Centre's Barenboim Project 2015.
The cycle contains the eleven complete Schubert sonatas, some more well-known than others, though all giving an insight into the composer’s creative genius and his emotional depth, so extraordinary for a man who died when he was just thirty-one years old.
The whole range of human feelings are there - joy, the optimism of youth, unrequited love, melancholy, pain, despair - most evident in the three last sonatas (D.598, D.959 and D.960), that are now considered masterpieces of the piano repertoire.
Yet most of these works were only published after his death in 1828, and for most of the 19th century, they remained neglected, as Schubert languished in the shadows of his revered Beethoven. Eventually, thanks in part to the championing of several fellow composers, including Mendelssohn, Brahms and Liszt, his popularity increased and he is now revered as one of the greatest composers of the late Classical and early Romantic period.
Daniel Barenboim hardly needs an introduction. The Argentine-born Israeli pianist and conductor has been gracing the world’s concert stages and recording studios for over sixty years. His repertoire is enormous, encompassing opera, symphonies, recitals and chamber music. He is an outspoken champion of Palestine and Israeli reconciliation and the founder of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. He often divides opinion, and his performances are not always universally acclaimed, but his musicianship and commitment are never in doubt. He has come relatively late to these Schubert sonatas, and these concerts will no doubt be hotly anticipated.