Sounds of Imagination

Claude Debussy, the master of Impressionism, weaves an enchanting tapestry of poetry in his late Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp. Just four years his senior was his former classmate at the Paris Conservatory, Mélanie Bonis, who published her works under the gender-neutral pseudonym Mel Bonis. Although highly gifted musically, Bonis was forced by her family to abandon her studies and enter into a marriage of convenience. Nevertheless, she managed to make a name for herself as a composer. With her piano trios *Matin* and *Soir* from 1907, she paints two subtle atmospheric portraits. A few years after Bonis and Debussy, Maurice Ravel also studied at the Paris Conservatory. While he drew inspiration for his cycle Ma mère l’oye—which is performed in a trio version—from well-known fairy tales such as Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast, Arnold Schoenberg was inspired by Richard Dehmel’s poem Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night). With intoxicating, late-Romantic sounds, he set to music the emotional encounter of the lovers from Dehmel’s poem.

An introduction will take place in the Mozart Hall 30 minutes before the start.