Our season-long exploration of the influence of Beethoven on the song cycle continues with works of one of his greatest admirers, Robert Schumann.

Beginning with the “series motto,” Beethoven’s letter to an unnamed distant beloved—a meditation on the love of a man for a woman—we then proceed to Schumann’s Frauenlieben und Leben, which sets poems that meditate on the love of a woman for a man. Following intermission, the bleak beauty of Justinus Kerner’s poetry, set by Schumann shortly after his marriage, is yet another view of love from a poet by turns infatuated and desolate.

Program
Beethoven An die ferne Geliebte
Schumann Frauenliebe und Leben
Schumann Kerner Lieder