Aim for excellence! You can improve your skills with expert advice. Download the annotated sheet music of this music chamber masterclass. Please note that this piece has been annotated in accordance to Isabel Charisius’s feedback and comments.

The prize winners were selected by a jury comprising (Alban Berg Quartet), 1983 to mark the 50th anniversary of Banff Centre.

Isabel Charisius is one of the finest violists and chamber musicians of her generation. As a member of the legendary Alban Berg Quartet, soloist and solo violist with leading orchestras, Isabel has appeared regularly at the most prestigious venues in Europe, the Americas and Asia.

She enjoys working in projects with distinguished string quartets, various ensembles and many renowned soloists at international venues and is frequently invited as a jury member on top international competitions.

For many years, Isabel has been dedicated to the development of new generations of musicians. She is an internationally recognised teacher of viola and chamber music. Her prolific teaching activity at the Universities of Cologne and Lucerne as well as a wide range of masterclasses at some of the most prestigious institutions gave rise to a large community of alumni. Students of Isabel can be found among the winners of international competitions and many of them are members of the world’s finest ensembles and orchestras. Isabel Charisius plays the extraordinary viola «ABQ» by Laurentius Storioni (1780).

Franz Schubert was born in Vienna, Austria in 1797 and displayed a natural musical talent at an early age. Growing up in a musical family, Schubert’s own brother would be his first music teacher. At 7-years-old, the young boy was sent to audition with Antonio Salieri to begin his formal education. After a successful meeting, Schubert was recruited to sing mezzo-soprano in a small choir for the services in the imperial Hofkapelle. Around this time, he learned how to play the violin, counterpoint, figured bass, singing, and organ lessons by his father.

His education would continue at the Royal City College, where he would remain for the following five years. During these early years of his life, Schubert already began to compose is first masterpieces. By adolescence, his understanding of composition deepened, and the now prolific composer wrote 150 songs by eighteen-years-old. Many of the lieder he wrote during this time are still widely celebrated for their mastery today. They include, An die musik, Nacht und Träume, Der Erlkönig, Ich wollt, and more.

Despite the composer’s genius and the fact that he managed to publish some of his works during his lifetime, Schubert was economically unstable, which worsened after 1824 after showing early symptoms of syphilis that would eventually take his life in 1828.

Franz Schubert’s work embodies two periods of classical music: Viennese classical and early Romanticism. His pieces are emotional and poetic in nature, but nevertheless fit a classical mold.  Schubert enjoyed experimenting with expression, modulation and was very influential in the genre of the Lied.