Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, 27-31 August 2025

27 August:

Our long coach ride from Salzburg to Mellau on Wednesday was broken by a visit to Innsbruck. While in this beautiful historic town we had a guided walking tour and had time for lunch.

The drive from Innsbruck to Mellau gave me my first opportunity to experience the stunning grandeur of the Alps in this part of Austria. It really is a special part of the world.

We will be attending concerts in nearby Schwarzenberg over the next few days. Mellau and Schwarzenberg are just two of the small, picturesque towns which are dotted along the highway which runs through western Austria. The Schwarzenberg Schubertiade is a long-established event devoted to Schubert's music.

Our first concert, on Wednesday night, was a performance of the Winterreise cycle by baritone Konstantin Krimmel and pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz. It was stunning. Krimmel's voice encompassed the most delicate utterances to extraordinary power, and Bushakevitz played Schubert's piano parts with incredible finesse and dramatic support. In the intimate venue it was a privilege to hear.

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28 August:

Thursday on our Hayllar Music Tours visit to western Austria started with me giving an extended talk covering two days' concerts at the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade. Then it was free time until our departure for the afternoon concert.

I was planning on walking through Mellau, the village where our hotel is located, but the wet weather led me to take a quieter option and rest.

The 4.00 pm concert in Schwarzenberg was a lieder recital given by Katharina Konradi, soprano, and Daniel Heide, piano. The program consisted of four composer-based brackets: Schubert - Liszt - Beethoven - Schubert. It was a lovely program, stylishly presented by both artists.

After a quick dash back to Mellau for dinner at our hotel, the 8.00 pm concert was chamber music. The Hagen Quartet were joined by star clarinettist Sabine Meyer for a beautiful performance of Mozart's clarinet quintet as the first half. After interval the Hagens gave us an excellent performance of Schubert's enigmatic - and often weird - last string quartet, the G major, D887.

It's a privilege to hear performances of such a calibre in this beautiful venue. Schwarzenberg is a small town - a village really - and the 600-seat hall is set on the edge of the town centre, overlooking fields and the Alps. It's named after the 18th century Swiss painter Angelika Kauffmann, who had family ties to Schwarzenberg.

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29 August:

Friday on this tour was a big one. In the morning we travelled by coach to Bregenz, on the Austrian shore of Lake Constance, about an hour from Mellau. Once there we met our local tour guide and boarded a ferry to cross to Lindau.

Lake Constance (known as Bodensee in German) is bordered by Austria, Switzerland and Germany. Lindau is the second largest island in the lake and is within Germany. It contains a beautifully preserved town full of medieval and Baroque architecture, which we explored on our walking tour. It was largely untouched, physically, by both world wars, making it a popular tourist destination.

It's now attached to the mainland by a bridge, meaning that after a wonderful lunch in a small Michelin-starred restaurant, we could meet our coach on the island. And for our whole time in Lindau the rain, which has been fairly constant during the past couple of days, stayed away.

We then headed straight back to Schwarzenberg for the first of our two concerts for the day at the Schubertiade.

The afternoon concert was extraordinary, a piano recital given by the legendary Elisabeth Leonskaja. She played an all-Schubert program: the Four Impromptus, D899, were followed by the Wanderer Fantasy, a work I never thought I'd ever hear performed live such are its eye-watering technical challenges. After interval she returned to play the G major sonata, D894.

This formidable woman turns 80 later this year. Her performance was magnificent and needed no concessions for age. Her stage presence - unflamboyant, almost stoic and devoid of bodily movement - placed the focus squarely on the music, which shone superbly. She provided two lengthy encores. A musical feast.

The evening concert was again all-Schubert, a lieder recital featuring two famous artists I'd hitherto only known from recordings: tenor Christoph Prégardien and pianist Julius Drake. Again we experienced a musical feast at the hands of two superb artists, a brilliant end to a brilliant day.

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30 August (i):

I just witnessed the most extraordinary thing. Working in my hotel room on my final talk I was aware of an industrial-type sound outside. On investigation I discovered it was a herd of cattle being led by tractors along a nearby road. Every animal had its own bell.

I've heard gentle, Mahler 6 type cowbells here in Austria. This was something else!

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30 August (ii):

Our Hayllar Music Tours Saturday in western Austria started with a free morning, very welcome after our busy (but wonderful) Friday.

After lunch I gave my final talk of the tour before hosting a Q+A session with one of the musicians performing at the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz. Ammiel, whom we heard in our first concert here performing Winterreise with baritone Konstantin Krimmel, was an absolute delight to chat with. He shared insights about his life and work and fielded questions from our guests.

We then headed to Schwarzenberg for the afternoon performance. This was a cello recital featuring Victor Julien-Laferrière, with pianist David Fray. The program was a big one: the Schubert Arperggione sonata, the Beethoven third sonata, the Schumann Op 73 Fantasiestücke, and the Brahms first sonata.

[...reaches for superlatives...]

This was stunning, simply some of the most perfect cello playing I've ever heard. Beautiful, not histrionic, not confusing passion with excessive vibrato...and a brilliant collaborative spirit between two musicians at the top of their game.

After a quick return to the hotel for dinner, the evening concert saw Ammiel and Konstantin return to give us Schubert's last cycle (if one can call it that), Schwanengesang.

[...inhales, reaches for yet more superlatives...]

Let me describe the program first. Schwanengesang is a collection of fourteen songs setting texts by three poets (seven by Rellstab, six by Heine and one by Seidl), compiled and published shortly after Schubert's death. It's certain that the composer didn't intend this as a cycle but the collection is what it is, providing a glimpse of Schubert's very last creative efforts.

Konstantin and Ammiel performed the seven Rellstab settings first, after which was interval. They then performed five Schubert songs setting Seidl texts, four of which aren't in Schwanengesang. The fifth was Taubenpost, the Seidl setting which concludes the original publication. They then concluded with the six Heine settings from Schwanengesang.

Konstantin Krimmel is one of the most remarkable, gifted lieder singers I've ever experienced. His Winterreise was wonderful but this was something else. I've never heard lieder performed with such subtle yet powerful drama. His voice, capable of the softest pianissimo and thundering fortes, is utterly beautiful. And his intonation was perfect.

And at the piano Ammiel played with equal drama, passion and commitment. His ability to match the expressive intention of the voice was captivating.

The result was probably the most amazing and deeply moving lieder performance I've ever heard. And I've heard a few. It was a privilege to witness and I'll never forget it.

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31 August:

Our last full day in western Austria saw us attend the final concert in the 2025 Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, which started at 11.00am. The mist and rain we experienced on the first couple of days here gave way to glorious sunshine yesterday and today (Sunday), making the environment around the concert venue even more dazzling and beautiful.

There were two works on the program: Beethoven's Septet, Op 20, and Schubert's Octet, D803. The performers were led by violinist Franziska Hölscher, and comprised a line-up of stunning instrumentalists. The Beethoven, incredibly popular in its day (much to the composer's annoyance), is a delight. The Schubert - in part inspired by Beethoven's septet - is a monster. It's an hour long and makes superhuman demands on its performers. It's been many years since I heard the Schubert live (in Melbourne); I'm not sure I've ever heard the Beethoven live.

Regardless of the music's challenges, these musicians more than rose to the task and brought this magical festival (in its 49th year) to an ebullient close. It was a thrilling and beautiful performance.

We then walked the short distance to a beautiful restaurant in Schwarzenberg for our farewell lunch. Yet more food and drink was consumed at our hotel a few hours later as we shared a final social time together with drinks and canapes.

This tour, taking in the enormous Salzburg Festival and the intimate Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, has been an extraordinary experience. As you will have read in my daily summaries, we've seen some incredible performances and I count it an inestimable privilege to have been able to accompany this lovely tour group and share some insights on the music we've heard.

And I'm thrilled that I'll be back to lead this tour again next year.

For now, though, I'm only a third of the way through my time in Europe. Tomorrow we go to Munich by road before going our separate ways. I have another tour starting in two weeks but in the meantime I'll have a quiet break in Munich on my own.

First posted on Facebook

Angelika Kauffmann Saal - Schwarzenberg