Birdfoot’s Finale presents music born of the lover’s sigh, the heroine’s last gasp, and life’s emotional highs and lows. Few works of chamber music are as thrilling as Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” quartet, named for the composer’s song in which a maiden pleads with Death to pass her by (and whose haunting melody is the centerpiece of the quartet). Surrounding Schubert’s masterpiece are musical gems of equally intimate and acute emotion: Monteverdi’s madrigals open up the fresh pain of heartbreak, Purcell’s heroine Dido (the mythic queen of Carthage) laments her last moments, John Dowland’s “teares” flow in sweet sorrow, and composer-in-residence Patrick Castillo’s Dreamers Often Lie explores the bizarre real-as-life experience of dreams.

Henry Purcell: Chacony

John Dowland: Selections from Lacrimae or Seaven Teares

Patrick Castillo: Dreamers Often Lie

Claudio Monteverdi:

“Piagn’e sospira”

Lamento della Ninfa

Lamento d’Arianna, “Lasciatemi morire”

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber: Mensa Sonora III

Franz Schubert: String Quartet in D minor, “Death and the Maiden”

$30 General Admission
$15 Students (with ID)

This concert will be proceeded by a Young Artist Program Showcase Concert from 6–7 PM