Mystery

Schubert’s Fantasie in C Major begins as if in a dream, with murmuring tones in the piano, and a bewitching violin melody emerging from the reverie. From this mysterious beginning, Schubert weaves a fantasy of such imagination and delight, showcasing the full ranges of both instruments and pushing the performers to their limits, both technically and musically. Evocative and highly engaging, Schubert’s Fantasie is a prime example from the early Romantic era.

Mozart’s Sonata in Eb Major is one of his most mature and developed sonatas for violin and piano. Ripe with passion and great depth of feeling, yet almost crystalline in its refined perfection, in this sonata Mozart shows music’s potential as sublime art and reflector of our humanity.

This season concludes a multi-year project in which Peckins has performed the complete solo violin music by Bach and Ysaye in over 30 recitals throughout New England, and it is a special treat to have Bach’s Sonata in C Major on this program as a culmination of that project. Demanding and dazzling both as a tour de force of Baroque virtuosity and as a highly sophisticated musical achievement, this sonata is heard less frequently in live performance due to its staggering difficulty.

This program concludes with Schubert’s Ave Maria and Wieniawski’s Polonaise Brillante, beloved by audience members and musicians alike as an iconic virtuoso showpiece!