Giuseppe Gibboni / Arsenii Moon

The program begins with the first violin sonata by contemporary composer Alexey Shor, whose catchy musical language deliberately draws on the Romantic tradition. Here, melody and accompaniment meet in lyrical immediacy, laying the foundation for a look back that bridges the present with historical programmaticism.

The centerpiece of the evening is the famous »F.A.E. Sonata«, a collaborative work for violin and piano by Albert Dietrich, Johannes Brahms, and Robert Schumann. The shared motif of friendship, »Free but Lonely«, gives rise to a fascinating dialogue between three styles, which focuses on the violin as a confessional narrative voice and celebrates the intimate interplay between the two instruments.

Rachmaninoff’s »Vocalise« condenses the idea of the musical narrative voice into pure sound speech without words. In the arrangement for violin and piano, a floating, timeless melodiousness unfolds, inviting the listener to pause and reflect, and bringing together the emotional depth of the evening.

Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No. 1 provides a dramatic conclusion to the concert evening. With its sombre expressiveness and rugged modernity, it takes the dialogue between violin and piano to existential limits. Shadows, unrest, and quiet menace are juxtaposed with a haunting sensitivity. It forms a powerful contrast to the preceding works and at the same time consistently continues the program’s previously established theme, which is characterized by the idea of the violin as a quasi-human voice and its partnership with the piano.