Schubert Singt II is part of my ongoing work with the voice and Schubert's songs. I have worked with my own untrained voice as well as with trained classical voices, and in this case I work with the choral voice. My starting point is always an image of Schubert sitting at the piano, singing his owns songs to a group of friends. And the fact that we'll never know what Schubert's voice sounded like is the most intriguing thing with this image. There does, however, exist fragments of his diary, where he displayed a talent for the aphorism. Some of these serve as text in Schubert Singt II, adding to the attempt to conjure up Schubert's voice.
My first meeting with Schubert's music was not in a concert hall, but listening to an LP somewhere in my teens. And the format of the vinyl record plays an important role also in this work: As the recording technology of the 20th century transformed our way of listeing, the intimate listening situation was no longer the house concert of Schubert's time, but your own living room, maybe with Dietrich Fischer Dieskau on the stereo, singing Schubert's songs in private for you. These songs are accompanied by a piano, and in Schubert Singt II the piano plays a part in the form of a fragment from one of Schubert's most popular songs. The piano is transformed in the meeting with the choral voice, and makes Schubert sing in yet another way.