CUUC Music: Sun Feb 14

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Sunday morning’s solo piano music includes works composed by a composer in love and works written to celebrate a loving occasion.

Robert Schumann endured years of separation from his beloved Clara Wieck because of the opposition of the latter’s father to the couple’s desire to wed. During this difficult period, the young lovers corresponded about musical matters and exchanged musical works. Among these, Robert’s Kreisleriana, based on a novel by E.T.A. Hoffman, was one of the most hotly inspired and emotional.

The pianist who most influenced me growing up was the Spaniard Alicia de Larrocha. The works by Federico Mompou and Xavier Montsalvatge were both written as wedding gifts for Alicia on the occasion of her marriage to pianist Joan Torra in 1950.

In addition, the CUUC Choir is on hand with powerful messages about love and hope, the first a setting of an ancient Latin text by Seneca, the second based on the powerful words of a Holocaust victim.

Read on for programming details.

Prelude: Adam Kent, piano

Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch from Kreisleriana, Op. 16

                                    Robert Schumann

Preludio XI

                                    Federico Mompou

Anthem: CUUC Choir directed by Lisa N. Meyer and accompanied by Georgianna Pappas

Si Vis Amari*  

Jerry Estes

*Translation: If you want to be loved, love.

Offertory:
Divagación

                                                            Xavier Montsalvatge

Anthem:

An Inscription of Hope                         

music by Z. Randall Stroope, text from an inscription found in on a cellar wall in Cologne, Germany