Few composers were able to capture joy and sadness together in one moment like Franz Schubert. Scholars point to Schubert as a figure whose warm, charming, and occasionally hedonistic side coexisted with depression and profound loneliness. These aspects are certainly prevalent in his stunning output of vocal music during his very short life, in which he set hundreds of poems to music and elevated the art of song to levels some argue have never been surpassed. Given the concentrated timeline, you could say this catalog of songs is a near manic whirlwind of brilliant compositions that only a lucky few heard in his lifetime. As he shied away from the concert halls in which his contemporary Beethoven—with big and bold sounds—was thriving, Schubert opted for intimate gatherings that came to be known as Schubertiade. There, in those salons, people would come to witness the pleasure and pain that Schubert, a master of melding text and music, could toss off so effortlessly—no doubt, a glimpse into the composer’s struggles through his life that was taken from him (and us) far too early.
With this program, Yi-heng and I wanted to create our own song cycle of sorts, honoring the composer and the feelings of so many who struggle in darkness. Taking inspiration from Schubert’s protagonists of the great cycles like Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, I began to look at my surroundings both in the environmental sense and at my personal world: my family, my circle of friends, colleagues, acquaintances, strangers on the subway, people you see and read about in the news. Everyone seems to be struggling in some way with what it means to find true connection in a time when we are so “connected” digitally, but cut off from one another in real time. Without proselytizing too much about our political and social divides today, I do feel it is a dark time for so many of us. It is from this darkness that a program of songs was born to address the solitude that we are feeling right now, and the sometimes desperate search to find some comfort in the lonely void: an idea that isn’t unique to the time we live in, necessarily, but certainly rings true for many people now, as well as in the past, as perhaps the struggling Franz was.
Exploring poetry mostly around the theme of night, we start our journey with the idea that one can be out to sea in both the literal and figurative sense, searching for illumination, be it to a physical destination or self discovery. The rolled A-flat major chord of “Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren” begins our prayer for safe passage, as night inspires, enchants, deceives, and beguiles us. Throughout this expedition, the stars and the moon are benevolent guides, reminding us that we are not alone as they light the path forward. At one stop on our trip, we are out on a boat again during “Des Fischers Liebesglück,” noting that only stars can overhear us as they shine above us in the sky and are reflected below us in the water’s depths: This infinity is at once soothing and unsettling, as the image of floating above the stars releases us from the mortal world into the unknown. That uncertainty culminates in the final song, “Das Rosenband,” in which we have found something. Was it what we were looking for? Ending with another rolled A-flat major chord, we open our eyes, not fully understanding the experience of life, but seeing clearly there is a paradise to be reached, both on this earth and beyond.
Yi-heng and I offer you a glimpse into our collective loneliness and sadness as humans on this beautiful earth. Surrounded by nature, yearning for connection, in dreams and wide awake, this program traces a journey through life’s loves, joys, pains, terrors, torments, and betrayals under the veil of night. We all can go through the darkest of times, and often it can seem as if we’re going at it alone and it feels horrible. However, in the end, we extend consolation in the idea that it is OK to feel sad, and there is always light around us to illuminate our path should we choose to see it.
(I wrote the words above in 2019 for the liner notes of our album, Where Only Stars Can Hear Us, which was released on Avie Records in March 2020. A week after the release, the world was in lockdown, which made the message of this program more poignant and eerily prescient. We have all been plunged into darkness in ways we couldn’t imagine. Two years later, as we emerge into the light, it’s with great honor that Yi-heng and I share this program with you.)
—Karim Sulayman