Kian Soltani / Aaron Pilsan

»Schumann’s Toccata is so difficult, no one here can play it well apart from Schunke [to whom the piece was dedicated] and Clara Wieck,« wrote a critic for »Der Komet« magazine on 26 September 1834. »The two pianists play it differently. The former performs it as an etude, while the latter understands it poetically and animates it with spirit.« The 14-year-old Clara Wieck, who would later marry Robert Schumann, was clearly able to master the outrageous technical difficulties without neglecting the poetry of the piece. Aaron Pilsan and Kian Soltani – who won the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival’s Leonard Bernstein Award in 2017 – round off their programme at this year’s festival with Brahms’s Cello Sonata in E minor and works by Bach, Reza Vali and Piazzolla.