The Wanderer

The musical evening “The Wanderer” at Kadriorg Palace is dedicated to all who journey through life without fearing the winds of change, and to all who know that darkness does not last forever and that dawn follows even the darkest night. The programme includes Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata No. 17, “The Tempest,” which fills the hall with primal force in a struggle against inexorable fate. Alongside it are Robert Schumann’s “Symphonic Etudes”—a true odyssey of the spirit, where every melodic turn is a step from doubt to understanding. Ralph Vaughan Williams’s song cycle “Songs of Traveller,” set to texts by Robert Louis Stevenson, is like a promise of adventures from which one never returns quite the same. Four songs by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, meanwhile, ring with hope and bright sorrow, homesickness, and the joy of a new meeting. German Romanticism, Viennese Classicism, Russian lyricism, and 20th-century English modernism emerged in different centuries and at opposite ends of Europe, yet they are invisibly united by the eternal motif of the journey. Music can speak of it more precisely than any words—without translation. Ivan Babich is a young baritone who has already proven himself at international competitions. After studying at the Academic Music College of the Moscow Conservatory, he continued his studies at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden. Viktor Peleptšuk is an Austrian pianist and laureate of international and regional competitions. Since 2016, he has lived and worked in Klagenfurt, where he is actively developing his concert career.