Human, All-too-human is what Stefan Astakhov and Alejandro Picó-Leonís focus on – and take aim at. Their selection of songs highlights, sometimes softly glowing, sometimes dazzlingly, what it means to be human (mostly from a male perspective). There is wisdom at play when the musical wonder chamber opens, resonating a “Panakustikum” of our strengths and weaknesses. Moods and states are evoked, stories are told, souls express themselves intimately or, biting, the intellect mocks. The program “All-too-human” is an emotional rollercoaster. For the settings of Schubert, Schumann, Busoni, and Wolf intensify the poems; it is as if they only fully come into their own as songs. Thus, as a listener, one cannot help but internally experience everything that is sung.
Grotesque, fine humor, comedy, irony, mockery. Seriousness and melancholy, pathos and a smile. Fire riders, elves, and night specters. Superstition and magic, hubris and nemesis. Romantic longing beyond the earthly, “home” to transcendence, and the yearning for the distant beloved, who lures more than the vast world. The promises, dreams, and illusory plans of being in love, unfulfilled love as tragedy, as the end of the world. Suicide fantasy and death longing. Death as comforter or terror. In the midst of it all, Mother Earth gets everything right – we just need to recognize that... And in society: power struggles, seduction, fake and facade, the struggle for recognition as a nasty zero-sum game.
Program:
ALLZU-MENSCHLICH
Franz Schubert (1797–1828): Auf der Bruck | Freiwilliges Versinken | Die Mutter Erde | Die Liebe hat gelogen
Robert Schumann (1810–1856): Mondnacht | Schöne Fremde | Märzveilchen | Ich wandelte unter den Bäumen | Entflieh mit mir und sei mein Weib | Es fiel ein Reif in der Frühlingsnacht | Belsatzar
Ferrucio Busoni (1866–1924): 5 Goethe Lieder: Lied des Brander | Lied des Mephistopheles | Lied des Unmuts | Schlechter Trost | Zigeunerlied
Hugo Wolf (1860–1903): Der Feuerreiter | Anakreons Grab | Der Glücksritter | Elfenlied |
Der Rattenfänger
Artists:
Stefan Astakhov, baritone | Alejandro Picó-Leonís, piano
Stefan Astakhov, GWK Award winner (2018), who has also received international recognition and studied in Detmold, has been a member of the Vienna State Opera since 2022. Since his debut in 2002 at Carnegie Hall as the winner of the Artist International New York Debut Award, Spanish pianist Alejandro Picó-Leonís has been performing as a soloist, chamber musician, and sought-after song accompanist on international stages. Both take a little jab at themselves at the end of “All-too-human”: “Then the versatile singer is sometimes a girl catcher; […] And if girls were still that silly, And if women were still that coy, Yet all will be so love-wary At magic strings and song.”
Photo: Liliya Namisnyk
Hallo, ich bin Maya.
