Mother's day

- The 16-year-old Anton Webern composed these two pieces for his mother, who was a cellist. Very soon after this, Webern’s harmonic language changed completely as he entered the uncharted territories of atonality.

- “One of my favourite pieces of music for solo violin is the Presto from Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 1 in G minor. On the anniversary of my mother’s death, I composed six more pieces to make a suite. The Bach is quoted in the movement ‘Rest These Hands’ which takes its title from three poems my mother wrote in the last year of her life.”

Anna Clyne

- Accompanied by his mother, Mozart had set out from Salzburg in September 1777 in search of the position his father was sure would bring him fame. The journey—which took him through Mannheim, Paris, and Munich—can hardly be regarded as a success: Mozart spent too much money and found no position at all. The true cataclysm, though, was that his mother became ill and died in Paris in July 1778.Wolfgang wrote seven violin sonatas during this trip. The Sonata in E minor is wistful music, full of a depth of feeling absent from the other five sonatas, and few commentators have been able to resist associating it with the death of Mozart’s mother.

- Christiane Brahms was a charming, lively personality, a domestic goddess, dearly loved by all her children. (Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim even commented favourably on her cooking skills!) She provided her son Johannes with safety and stability; she was always very proud and supportive of him. Christiane’s death in 1865 affected Johannes greatly; in fact, this was the impetus that spurred the creation of Ein deutsches Requiem and a new trio. The slow movement of the trio is perhaps the most explicit dedication to his mother’s memory, but throughout the work one can hear references to a folksong that Johannes’s mother taught him as a child.

Tickets: €33 | 25