Cello: On March 10, Gabriel Schwabe will perform with the China NCPA Orchestra under the baton of Chinese conductor Zhang Guoyong at the National Centre for the Performing Arts.
On March 10, top cellist Gabriel Schwabe return to Beijing to perform with the China NCPA Orchestra under the baton of Chinese conductor Zhang Guoyong at the National Centre for the Performing Arts
From Dec 25, 2016 to Jan 16, 2017, cellist Gabriel Schwabe did an extensive tour of China, comprising 16 cities, including Wuhan, Chongqing, Shanghai and Beijing. Together with Chinese pianist Zhao Yinyin and Robert Oberaigner, the principal clarinet at the Staatskapelle Dresden, he performed works by Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms.
It was Schwabe’s first trip to China and he was fascinated by the immense cultural richness of the country “with each region having its own climate, traditions, way of life and cuisine”.
On March 10, the cellist will return to the capital and perform with the China NCPA Orchestra under the baton of Chinese conductor Zhang Guoyong at the National Centre for the Performing Arts. It will be his first collaboration with the orchestra and maestro Zhang.
The repertoire will feature Joseph Haydn’s Cello Concerto No 1 in C major and Concerto No 2 in D Major for cello and orchestra.
“These two concertos are an important part of any cellists’ repertoire and have been done by me for many years,” says Schwabe.
In fact, Haydn’s Cello Concerto No 1 in C major, has “a wonderful, dance-like energy and is full of youthful joy and freshness” and, he says, was the first piece he played with a professional orchestra — the Deutsche Oper Berlin-as a teenager in 2003.
Concerto No 2 in D Major is a piece Schwabe learned some years later, and played for the first time in the final of the first major competition he participated in, the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann, in 2006.
“What’s fascinating to me is that Haydn very obviously perceived the instrument in a different way from other composers. While the cello usually is associated with a dark tone and melancholic tendencies, Haydn sees the instrument full of lightness and elegance, capable of playing around and soaring above the orchestra. All of this is enabled by his masterful instrumentation, being careful to keep the orchestra transparent, so the soloist is not pushed to force his tone,” Schwabe adds.
At 30, Schwabe has established himself among the leading cellists of his generation. He is a laureate of numerous national and international competitions, such as the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann in 2006. And, in 2007 he won the German National Music Competition, and received the Soloist Award of the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In 2009, he won the prestigious Pierre Fournier Award in London.
Born in Berlin to German-Spanish parents, Schwabe grew up with music since his mother was a piano teacher and she had students come in for lessons.
As a child, the cellist would sing and listen to lots of music, and eventually he played piano as his first instrument.
He also had a short affair with the violin, before he realized that cello is the instrument with which he could best express himself musically. He studied at the University of Arts in Berlin and later at the Kronberg Academy.
Schwabe adds that growing up in a German-Spanish family means that he was exposed to an exciting mix of languages, food and music.
“I still have a great affinity to Spanish music and like to include a Spanish repertoire in my programs.
“From a very early age I was drawn to music, and as classical music was predominant at home, this was the music which most attracted my attention.
“One of my earliest musical memories is playing a tune from the Roman Polanski film The Fearless Vampire Killers by ear on the piano. So, whether it was playing film music, singing a Spanish children’s song with my mother, or listening to a Shostakovich symphony on the radio, there was no distinction between genres for me as a child. And I enjoyed any piece of music which moved something in me,” he recalls.
In 2015, Schwabe signed an exclufuture sive recording contract with record label Naxos, and released his debut CD, Brahms Sonatas and Songs with pianist Nicholas Rimmer, the same year.
A recording of the complete works for Cello and Orchestra by Saint-Saens with the Malmo Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Marc Soustrot was released in October 2017.
“These sonatas — and Brahms as a composer generally — are very dear to me as the expressive urgency and formal density of this music always spoke to me in a special way.
“The Saint-Saens album has a few well-known ‘hits’ among his works for cello and orchestra, but there are so many more pieces to be discovered which are really worth exploring as a musician,” he says.
Commenting on Schwabe’s second album, Andrew Everard, Gramophone’s audio editor, writes: “This is a wonderfully focused recording, with a beautiful rendition of the tone and textures of the solo instrument, and a natural balance between cello and orchestra without spotlighting.”
In 2017, the cellist also co-founded the project, Masterclasses Berlin, with violinist Hellen Weiss, which is to create a platform for this exchange of musical ideas.
It gives young string players of violin, viola, and cello the possibility to work on their playing in intense lessons, to learn not only from the teachers, but also through the exchange with their young colleagues, and to gain performing experience in the masterclass concerts.