Immortal Beloveds

Many enduring works of music have been inspired by a great love. Following his death in 1827, among Beethoven's possessions were letters written to an unidentified woman, including this excerpt:

"Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all."

Many scholars have speculated that these letters date from the summer of 1812, when he wrote the brief Piano Trio (WoO 39). This work is dedicated to Maximiliane Brentano, the daughter of Antoine Brentano, and was given to her by Beethoven personally on June 26, 1812. Although there is significant conjecture as to the identity of the "Immortal Beloved," her mother is considered a prime candidate.

American song composer Tom Cipullo (b. 1960) is a recipient of the Aaron Copland Award and winner of the American Art Song Competition for Composers. His song cycle Late Summer was written in 2001 and uses beautiful texts by William Heyen ("Crickets"), Emily Dickinson ("...Summer into Autumn Slips") and Stanley Kunitz ("Touch Me"). The program's first half concludes with the powerful Race for the Sky by noted American song composer Richard Pearson Thomas (b. 1957), whose work for soprano, violin and piano uses texts left in public memorials - including the Grand Central Train Station - following the World Trade Center disaster on September 11, 2001.

In 1853, twenty-year-old Johannes Brahms was introduced to Robert Schumann, who enthusiastically hailed his talent in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik and became, with his wife Clara, an important mentor and friend. Brahms' Trio in B Major (Opus 8) dates from 1854, when Schumann's suicide attempt led to his being committed to a mental sanitarium, followed by his death two years later. Virtually from their first meeting Brahms and Clara enjoyed a mutually impassioned relationship - which may have remained platonic throughout their lives - that is memorialized in this Trio through its allusions to Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto, which she was practicing and performing at the time of its composition. In revisiting this work some twenty years later, Brahms elected to make substantial revisions to its form, which is the version performed in this concert.