Tenor Jonathan Abernethy Photo: Supplied / Jonathan Abernethy
Seems young men have been getting it wrong about young women since way before the internet.
Right now, New Zealand tenor Jonathan Abernethy is part way through a three-gig tour performing Schubert's great song cycle Die schöne Müllerin (The Fair Maid of the Mill) with pianist Terence Dennis.
Schubert set 20 poems by his friend Wilhelm Müller to music in 1823.
They're sung mostly from the point of view of a young bloke who puts a young woman on a pedestal, thinks she loves him, then decides she doesn't and eventually decides life is not worth living - all without checking in with the maid in question, let alone anyone else.
Franz Schubert Photo: Wilhelm August Rieder Public Domain
Speaking with RNZ Concert host Bryan Crump part way through his short tour, Abernethy says the scenario of a young man whose main dialogue is with himself is still relevant two hundred years after Schubert and Müller wrote it.
Abernethy says there have been times in his life when he lost the plot a little, but these days he's happily settled in Germany working as a professional musician with a fellow singer for a partner, and a young daughter.
Abernethy and Terence Dennis will perform Die schöne Müllerin at St Andrew's on the Terrace in Wellington this Sunday at 4pm, with the final concert at Auckland Opera Studio in Eden Terrace, 7pm on 11 April.
