Karl Leister

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a seamless balance, a luminous tone, and a level of ensemble virtuosity that is still unsurpassed.

The son of a clarinetist, Leister was a musical phenomenon in Berlin, a soloist with the Komische Oper at nineteen and then with the Philharmonic at twenty-one. During his three decades under Karajan, Leister played in some of the finest orchestral performances ever recorded. Older listeners recall his fresh, rustic tone in the 1962 Beethoven Pastoral; his cool, hot tone in the 1965 Ravel Bolero; his softly yearning tone in the 1973 Mahler Fifth; and his sublime spiritual tone in the 1979 Bruckner Ninth.

During his years in the Philharmonic, Leister also had careers as a chamber musician and a teacher. After he retired from the Berlin in 1993, he continued the first and expanded the second. For two days in March, Leister will be at the U-M music school in both capacities, teaching a master class on Wednesday, March 16, and then performing a recital at Rackham Auditorium on Thursday, March 17.

For his recital Leister has chosen two of the ripest works of German Romanticism: Schumann's Drei Fantasiestcke, op. 73, and Brahms's Sonata, op. 120, no. 2. Schumann wrote the three "fantasy pieces" at the height of his powers, two years before his collapse into insanity. With their melancholy inward lyricism and edgy outward ebullience, these fantasy pieces are a portrait of the composer on the edge of a nervous breakdown.