Poetry, Song and Scholarship: a concert for the German Exchange

As part of the annual German Exchange with Augsburg, we are delighted that this evening will feature a special concert of poetry and song. Mr Ayebare from the Mathematics Department, who joined the school in September 2025, will perform selections from Schubert, Schumann and Richard Strauss. He will be joined by year 11 pupil Dhruv and year 12 pupil Raph, with accompaniment on the piano by Simon Parkin of the Royal Northern College of Music.

Reflecting on the event, Mr Ayebare said: “Tonight's concert is a collaboration between members of the Languages, Music and Mathematics departments of MGS; this is a virtue of this great school. What started out as an idea for a lecture on German Romanticism with recordings of German Lieder has evolved into a live music performance with performers drawn from staff, pupils and the parent of an alumnus of the school. The Lieder I have selected for tonight's performance are taken from a recital programme which I prepared for my graduation concert at the Royal Northern College of Music several years ago. I hope this will be a signal to today's MGS pupils that it is possible for one to thrive in both scientific and artistic endeavour.”

Dhruv commented: "Since I began my singing lessons a year ago, throughout working my way up my repertoire, German has become my favourite language to sing in. Studying the language at GCSE has really helped me further my understanding of the nuances of the language, culture, and appreciate the meaning behind the music I am performing today, and I also wish to take German as one of my A-Levels next year. I have some reasonable experience singing in German, as a member of the Hallé Youth Choir, having sang Mahler’s epic Resurrection Symphony in the Royal Albert Hall last summer. Recently, I was involved in the annual Youth Ensembles Celebration with the Hallé, in which I also performed a solo excerpt from the Scottish folk song, Loch Lomond.

"Du Bist Die Ruh is a German Lied of the romantic era, and is composed by the supposed ‘creator’ of the Lied itself: Franz Schubert. He wrote over 600 of them during his short career, which spanned only 15 years. Though he had no muse, Du Bist Die Ruh was not written about someone, but rather as an expression of his need for comfort and peace during a tumultuous period of his life. His lyrics were again taken from the famed poet Friedrich Rückert, more specifically from his collection Östliche Rosen (eastern roses - 1822), the title of the poem translating to ‘You are rest’. There was speculation that he wrote it for his ‘lover’ Therese Grob, and though they had a rocky and often uncertain relationship, he did write around 200 of his works for her. The song is said to be hymn-like, and invokes a gentle, loving sense of peace; and I find that it brings a stillness to the air in performance. I’m especially fond of this piece because of its challenging range and breath control, due to its slow pace.

"My second piece, Widmung, was composed by Robert Schumann in September of 1840, and is also a Lied of the romantic era. Schumann presented a collection of 26 songs to his beloved Clara as a wedding gift, and of those, Widmung is taken from ‘The Cycle, Myrten’ (meaning myrtle leaves, which were used in wedding bouquets, and symbolise love, peace, purity and divine blessing) from Opera 25. Schumann himself originally composed the piece with lyrics from the poet Friedrich Rückert; but it was soon after adapted by Liszt. He wrote the Opera in the hope that it would bring fortune to their marriage, as he was forced to undergo many legal battles with Clara’s father to be able to marry her. And perhaps it worked, because they had a long and successful marriage that outlived their many financial troubles and persisted through most of Schumann’s mental illness, though it ended his life in an asylum in 1856. After his death, his wife refused to remarry, and instead dedicated her life to performing her late husband’s work and looking after their eight children; until she was eventually buried beside him in 1896."

Raph said: "It will be a very pleasant experience to perform some great German songs tonight alongside Dhruv and Mr. Ayebare. My own selections are ‘Uber Allen Gilpfeln’ (Liszt) and ‘An Die Musik’ (Schubert). The Liszt is my favourite, because it has a ghostly, eerie quality that I’m really quite partial to. I ,myself, do not speak German, so learning these pieces has been rather challenging for me. Nonetheless, I am assured that my pronunciation is good (In this I must trust!). My hopes are that the exchange students care more for singing skills than they do German linguistic prowess."