Love and life

The program of the concert “Love and Life” includes two vocal cycles, each of them dedicated by the author to his beloved.

Women have been praised in music more than once. But most often they were looked at from the outside, as an image born in the depths of a loving soul. Robert Schumann in his cycle “A Woman’s Life and Love”, written soon after his marriage to Clara Wieck, addressed the personality of a woman, her secret experiences — from the joy of the first meeting to the bitterness of loss ...

The cycle “Six Romances on Texts by Japanese Poets” is one of the early works of Dmitry Shostakovich. It was written in 1928-32 and dedicated to the composer’s future wife, Nina Varzar. Shostakovich’s refined romantic “Japanese” romances with their graphic quality and musical calligraphy resemble the polished movements of Kabuki theater actors.