Programme & Tickets

Constant shifts in musical taste can be studied through program sequences: From today’s perspective, 19th-century concerts seem monstrous with their wild mix of choral works, opera excerpts, individual symphonic movements, and piano songs. In the 20th century, two models were particularly popular for the song recital genre: the eclectic medley or a chronological sequence of short song blocks.

Russian-American soprano Erika Baikoff, accompanied by James Baillieu, is now drawing on both of these tried-and-true formulas. Secretly, however, the evening does follow a common thread. For with Haydn’s “Mermaid’s Song” and three Mozart lieder, the programme begins with masters of the Viennese Classical period and remains in Vienna—now in a romantic mood—with Brahms lieder, which also take center stage here—including the wonderfully internalized “Es träumte mir.”” With Antonín Dvořák, the song cycle then turns to Bohemia and, with Edvard Grieg, to distant Norway, before returning to Vienna with the early, late-Romantic Arnold Schoenberg. A journey that traces nearly 200 years of Western musical history.

Erika Baikoff is active on both the opera and concert stages and is equally dedicated to chamber music; for example, she was the first-prize winner of the 2019 Helmut Deutsch Art Song Competition. Her partner, James Baillieu, is a renowned expert in chamber music and art song accompaniment. He works with leading singers and also demonstrates artistic insight as a program curator for festivals.

Concert without intermission