Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 things to know about Paul Lewis Plays Schubert

Acclaimed English pianist will perform 12 Schubert piano sonatas over the course of four concerts at the Vancouver Playhouse, starting May 11

By Jessca Werb

Paul Lewis. Photo by Kaupo Kikkas

Vancouver Recital Society presents Paul Lewis Plays Schubert at the Vancouver Playhouse on May 11, 13, 15, and 17 at 7:30 pm

PAUL LEWIS has been a frequent guest of the Vancouver Recital Society since his debut at the Vancouver Playhouse in 2000. This weekend he kicks off a four-concert series in which he’ll perform 12 piano sonatas by Franz Schubert.

Here are a few things know about the pianist’s enduring relationship with the VRS and the ambitious schedule of concerts he’s bringing to Vancouver audiences in the coming days.

#1

Lewis will be playing on a piano he hand-picked for the Vancouver Recital Society 16 years ago

In a testament to their long-enduring friendship, VRS’s artistic director Leila Getz trusted the virtuoso to visit Steinway’s Hamburg factory and select the ideal instrument to meet the needs of their myriad visiting artists. The instrument has since been played by notable musicians including Evgeny Kissin, Lang Lang, and, of course, Lewis himself.

#2

The sonatas will, for the most part, not be presented in chronological order

Lewis has carefully curated each evening’s program to showcase the composer’s evolution across different periods of his short 20-year career. However, in the last concert of the series, he will present sonatas 19, 20, and 21, written just weeks before Schubert’s death.

#3

Most of Schubert’s piano sonatas were unfinished at the time of his death

Only 11 of the 22 begun by the composer were completed before his premature death at the age of 31 (from a nasty combination of syphilis and typhoid fever). And of these, only three were published in his lifetime. About 20 of the sonatas are considered complete enough to be performed—including Piano Sonata No. 21 in B-flat major, D. 960, which will cap off Lewis’s ambitious lineup as the closing work of this concert series.

#4

Lewis did a similarly deep dive into the works of Beethoven

While he is engrossed in presenting the works of Schubert today, Lewis has also given intensive focus to the works of Ludwig van Beethoven, and spent two years performing all 32 of the Beethoven piano sonatas between 2005 and 2007. (He has also recorded Beethoven’s complete piano concertos and sonatas.) It’s perhaps fitting, then, to note that Schubert idolized Beethoven—who in turn, on his deathbed, is said to have proclaimed “Truly, the spark of divine genius resides in this Schubert!”

#5

The piano was not Lewis’s first instrument

Lewis did not grew up in a musical family. Born in Liverpool, his father was a dock worker and his mother a local council worker, and he began his musical studies on the cello, which was the only instrument his school could offer him. It was only when he was accepted into Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester at the age of 14 that his piano studies gained traction. He gained international attention when, at the age of 22, he clinched the second prize at the 1994 World Piano Competition in London.  

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