s.c.h.u.b.e.r.t.
places 8 bars from Franz Schubert’s ‘Eine Kleine trauermusik’ within an improvised texture of breathing sounds, the tonal material gradually seeping into the texture like paint into a river. The conductor uses his arms to convey the movement of his own inhalation/exhalation and this provides a guiding pulse and bar length.
My father’s last word was Schubert, laboriously spelled out on an alphabet card by blinking his eyes as we reached each letter. An amateur conductor he had crashed his car on his way from one orchestra to another. We never discovered why he had spelled this out...
