Kammermusik-Matinee

Music inspired by literature, which in turn inspires music: This process can be experienced in this program. The program begins with Beethoven's 'Kreutzersonate', named after the violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, to whom it was dedicated – but who never played it. Originally composed for the Black Violinist George Bridgetower, who later recounted that Beethoven withdrew the dedication 'after an absurd argument over a girl'. This story already has almost literary qualities; but Tolstoy told in his novella 'The Kreutzer Sonata' a completely different one about a man who murders his wife – because she played Beethoven's 'Kreutzersonate' with another. Tolstoy's tale, in turn, was the inspiration for Leoš Janáček's 'Kreutzersonate', which is not a sonata but a string quartet, in which he – unlike Tolstoi – musically took sides for the alleged adulteress.