Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: Conversations with Friends

Born one year and 500 miles apart, Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn met in Leipzig in 1835. It would be the beginning of a deep artistic and personal relationship, which extended to include Schumann’s wife, Clara, a virtuosic pianist and composer herself.

Mendelssohn produced his Piano Trio in D minor, Op 49 in 1839, which Schumann declared an immediate masterpiece, and went as far as to pay homage to it in his own Piano Trio in the same key 8 years later, written for Clara as a birthday present in 1847.  Mendelssohn would pass away a few months after that composition, from a series of strokes, leaving the Schumanns devastated.  This program combines the compositions of these amazing friends, performed by musicians conversing musically on stage to bring these works to life.

Michael Stephen Brown, Piano
Kristin Lee, Violin
Sihao He, Cello

MENDELSSOHN Variations concertantes in D major for Cello and Piano, Op. 17
R. SCHUMANN Trio No. 1 in D minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 63
C. SCHUMANN Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22
MENDELSSOHN Trio No. 1 in D minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, Op. 49