Thomas Hampson opens the Schubert Week together with his longtime piano partner Wolfram Rieger. Their program combines selected song of Schubert (including the Rellstab settings from Schwanengesang) with works of his predecessors Reichardt and Zelter as well as Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte.

In more than 600 songs, Franz Schubert brought to musical life virtually all aspects of human emotions. His artistic adventurousness and his gift to focus thoughts “into limited but sharply defined contours,” as Franz Liszt said about his fellow composer, helped make the German word “lied” an untranslatable term. As in previous seasons, the world of Schubert will be the focus of an entire week of concerts and workshops at the Pierre Boulez Saal, featuring both veteran and young artists brought together by curator Thomas Hampson. In addition to Schubert’s songs, they will also explore the works of some of his predecessors and contemporaries such as Johann Rudolph Zumsteeg, Carl Loewe, and the composers of the “Berliner Liederschule,” such as Johann Friedrich Reichardt and Carl Friedrich Zelter, presenting a multilayered image of the lied genre.