INTO THE WATER - KONZERT

INTO THE WATER - KONZERT

Sunday, 18. October 2026
17:00 bis 18:20 Uhr

Soprano Viviane Hasler and pianist Maren Gamper will perform music inspired by lakes, the sea, and mermaids. The program will feature songs by Schubert, Honegger, Holmès, Clarke, and Eric Moe.

Viviane Hasler - Soprano
Maren Gamper - Piano

Songs about mermaids, water nymphs, lakes, and seas

Works by Franz Schubert, Rebecca Clarke, Arthur Honegger, Augusta Holmès, and Eric Moe, as well as piano improvisations.

Franz Schubert set various texts about water to music. Like nature in general, lakes, rivers, and the sea were sources of inspiration for many poets of the Romantic era. “Der Fischer” (text: Goethe) tells of an encounter with a water nymph who convinces the fisherman to join her in the water. It remains unclear whether this ending signifies the fisherman’s death or whether he now lives with her at the bottom of the lake. “The Fisherman’s Love” actually describes a happy love story, but—as is typical of Schubert—it sounds very melancholic.

Rebecca Clarke’s “The Seal Man” is one of the few pieces that tells a love story between a woman and a merman (rather than the other way around). This love also ends tragically, though it seems as if the Seal Man did not want his beloved to die: “It’s like he never knew that she wouldn’t bear the sea like himself.” The song is composed like a mini-fairy tale, with shifting moods and various characters speaking.

In contrast, three contemporary pieces by the American composer Eric Moe from his cycle “Siren Songs” are performed. In “Eyewitness Account,” Moe sets to music the text of an “eyewitness” account of a mermaid sighting in 1610. Several sailors saw a strange creature approaching their boat, but they became frightened and struck at it with a stick. They concluded: “This, I suppose, was a mermaid.” In this piece, the singer takes on the role of narrator.

The songs are linked by piano improvisations.


Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.
Eintritt:
40.- Regular / 20.- Student/Artist