We invite you to a concert featuring two outstanding composers’ early works that are among the most popular and most frequently performed. The first one is light and graceful, while the second brims with anxiety and passion.

The Violin Concerto in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn is one of his most famous works. Hardly anyone knows, however, that it was the second composition of this genre in his work. The Violin Concerto in D minor, which will sound this evening, was written in 1823, when Mendelssohn was only thirteen years old. This work never gained great popularity. The outstanding violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who performed it in 1952 at Carnegie Hall, and then recorded it three times, contributed to its appearance on concert stages. The Concerto in D minor is a light and carefree composition in a conventional, three-movement form, crowned with an energetic finale in the allegro tempo.

The Verklärte Nacht is an early work by Arnold Schönberg. The piece aroused considerable controversy during its premiere. Based on a poem by Richard Dehmel and inspired by the composer’s ardent affection for Mathilde von Zemlinsky, his future wife, it caused quite a stir among the prudish Viennese community, because the literary original is by no means particularly virtuous. Nowadays, the Verklärte Nacht no longer raises this kind of sensation, and its passionate and ardent expression makes it one of the most liked and most often played compositions by Schönberg.