»Weit in sehnendem Verlangen«

The melodic psychological drama of this chamber music recital starts with Schumann’s heart-rending Six Songs and with Gretchen’s monologue from Goethe’s »Faust«, which Schubert set to music just as poignantly. Spurred on by his (forbidden) love to Mathilde Wesendonck, Wagner had to content himself with setting her poems to music. Mendelssohn’s Quartet Op. 13 with its lied motif was written in a »Beethoven fever« shortly after the great composer’s death. Mendelssohn himself said that his quartet was »sentimental enough to make you weep«. And the loveable leading melody in Debussy’s quartet moves »as if striding over a luxurious, artfully patterned carpet of astonishing colourfulness«.