Pianist Boris Schonleber from Berlin will conduct a solo performance on Saturday. — Photo courtesy goethe.de

HA NOI (VNS) — Freelance pianist Boris Schonleber of Berlin will perform the music of Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss and Frederic Chopin in a solo concert at the Goethe Insititute here on Saturday.

Schonleber will also perform with mezzo-soprano Katharina Padrok in a concert at the Viet Nam National Academy of Music on October 25. A similar concert will be organised at the Goethe Institute on October 26. Padrok and Schonleber performed for the first time in Viet Nam last year.

Schonleber will begin his solo concert with Wagner's Piano Sonata WWV 85. Wagner (1813-1883), creator of great music dramas such as Parzifal, Tristan and Isolde and The Ring of the Nibelung, composed the sonata for Mathilde Wesendonck, the spouse of a patron.

He will also be playing five pieces which Strauss (1864-1949) composed at the young age of 15 that already echo The Knight of The Rose. Rarely played, this piano cycle contains artistic pearls.

The German pianist will end the evening with one of the greatest opuses for piano music that features breathtaking virtuosity: the 24 Preludes of Chopin (1810-49).

In their concert, Schonleber and Padrok will bring the audience on a journey through time with songs of the Age of Romanticism. This will include the works of Johannes Brahms (1833-97) and Robert Schumann (1810-56), the 20th century music of Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) and the late romantic songs of Richard Strauss.

They will also hold a master class for students of the National Academy of Music from October 20 to 24.

Schonleber studied with Alexander Malter and attended master classes of well-known pianists. He is working as a piano soloist, vocal accompanist and chamber musician in Berlin as well as other parts of Germany.

Padrok studied violin at the Conservatory Hannover and vocal pedagogy and school music at the University of Fine Arts Berlin. Her soloist repertoire is multi-sided and contains a variety of songs, contemporary music and tango. She is working as a vocal tutor at the conservatory in Frankfurt and the University of Arts and Music in Budingen. — VNS