Gotthold Schwarz - Mit Christian Fürchtegott Gellert aus Leipzig zu Ludwig van Beethoven nach Wien - Eine Liederreise (2021)

With his collection “Geistliche Lieder und Oden” (Sacred Songs and Odes), published in Leipzig in 1757, the poet Christian Fürchtegott Gellert seems to have struck a chord in his time. There is no other explanation for the fact that so many settings of these texts were published in the very first years. With these Leipzig poems in our luggage, our journey of song begins with settings by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and leads all the way to Vienna and the compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Gotthold Schwarz, for many years Kantor of St. Thomas’ Church Leipzig, will be accompanied by Gewandhaus organist Michael Schönheit on a Broadwood grand piano from 1805 – an instrument that would perfectly suit the period in which the songs were written. Ludwig van Beethoven himself owned a Broadwood grand piano built in 1807.