The Ensemble for the Romantic Century celebrated its ninth season by examining the lives of exiled artists from the perspective of spiritual, emotional, and intellectual displacements, a counterpart to exile as political isolation that formed the subject of our previous season. The condition of exile, understood as a removal from ordinary society, can also be seen as a symbolic need for the creative artist, who must often seek refuge in a closed-off inner world. This sense of artistic isolation was the focus of the 2009-2010 season.

Nietzsche: My Heart, My Serpent: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The psychological and spiritual journeys of Nietzsche and his alter-ego Zarathustra are portrayed in this dramatic Liederabend. The compelling language of Nietzsche's masterpiece, along with excerpts from his letters, will portray a man in search of his true self as he struggles to free himself from the grip of madness and painful memories. Works by some of the greatest Romantic composers, the enchanting sounds of a children's chorus and baritone, and instrumental interludes will create a musical tapestry that includes Brahms's Four Serious Songs, Wolf's Prometheus, and Liszt's dramatic recitation The Sad Monk.

Wilde: De Profundis: The Exiles of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) belongs to that class of artists for whom no introduction is needed. His name has entered our collective imagination and his aphorisms have become an indelible feature of the English language. Wilde's multifaceted personality, his biting wit, and the brilliance of his artistic genius added sparkle and glamour to late Victorian society. Wilde's personal life, brought into the glare of public scrutiny during his trial for homosexuality, intruded mercilessly on society's appreciation of his genius. Humiliated, degraded, exiled from society, and sentenced to two years of forced labor, Wilde became a thoroughly different person after his imprisonment. This concert focuses on Wilde's prison ordeal and the two years that he spent in exile in Paris after being freed from the prison of Reading. A script based on his correspondence, plays, and short stories provide a dramatic backdrop for music by French and English composers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Schubert's Dream
Schubert’s short story My Dream, a tale of exile and homecoming, opens new insights into many facets of Schubert’s life and personality. Having performed and composed exclusively among a private circle of friends, Schubert remains of the most elusive of Romantic composers. His outgoing personality and lively social life sometimes masked an undercurrent of anxiety, insecurity, and loneliness. In My Dream, many of these feelings come to the surface as Schubert recounts a dream of being repeatedly driven out of his father’s house and forced to wander in foreign lands. This concert will highlight Schubert’s only known literary work amid performances of some of his most personal chamber music and songs, including his second Piano Trio and selected songs from Die Winterreise and Schwanengesang

Ensemble for the Romantic Century celebrated its eighth season by examining the lives of exiled artists. Exile can take many forms. It can be political or spiritual, or it can be caused by an isolating physical condition. Artists in exile sometimes withdraw into themselves, as was the case of the exiled Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, who said that “the condition we call exile accelerates tremendously one’s otherwise professional flight-or drift- into isolation, - into an absolute perspective: into the condition in which all one is left with is oneself and one’s own language, with nobody or nothing in between.” Yet some exiled artists become mediators between the culture or situation they have left behind and the new one in which they find themselves. They take from and contribute to their new worlds, transforming their experience as exiles into artistic expression and in some cases into political activism.

Toscanini: Too much of the Absolute in my heart
Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), the most celebrated conductor in history, was admired also for his opposition to Fascism and Nazism. His clashes with Mussolini and Hitler and his trips to Palestine to conduct an orchestra made up of Jewish refugees from Europe showed the world that artists can raise their voices against totalitarianism. During World War II he lived in exile in the United States, gave benefit concerts to further the war effort, and assisted other musicians to immigrate and find work. This program, based mainly on the hundreds of passionate letters that Toscanini wrote to his lover Ada Mainardi during the 1930’s, in which he discussed political, artistic, and personal matters, as well as letters to Mussolini, Hitler, Roosevelt, and others, reveal the thoughts of an artist who had the courage to say no to the potentates of his time. This theatrical concert will feature music by composers such as Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Fano, younger contemporaries of Toscanini who were forced to flee Italy, as well as works by Verdi and Respighi.

Chopin: Letters from Majorca
Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849) spent most of his adult life in Paris, in exile from his beloved native Poland, which was then under Russian control. Among the many love relationships that formed an important part of the composer’s life, the longest and best known was his nine-year liaison with the writer George Sand (pseudonym of Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant). During their tumultuous love affair, she was witness to the composition of several masterpieces of Chopin’s maturity, including the 24 Preludes, opus 28. These musical jewels were composed or completed during a disastrous three-month stay in Majorca, where George Sand had brought Chopin in the hope that he would recover from tuberculosis during the winter of 1838-39. In this program, the lovers’ letters, diaries, and reminiscences were interwoven with a performance of the composer’s complete 24 Preludes, offering an intimate look into the inner dramas of two artists in physical and emotional exile.

Heine: First They Burn Books
In 1831, Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), probably the greatest of all the German Romantic poets, left Germany for Paris, where he lived the rest of his life as a political exile. His works had been banned in his native country as a result of his radical and publicly aired political beliefs. His conversion to Christianity, which was seen by many of his intimates as a betrayal of his Jewish heritage, further exacerbated his isolation. Heine’s works were later banned by the Nazis and his grave in Montmartre was destroyed. With a script based on Heine’s writings, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Wagner’s infamous essay Judaism in Music, this theatrical concert examined censorship in Heine’s time and beyond, into the Nazi period. Works of such “degenerate” composers as Mendelssohn, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, and Mahler, as well as some of Schubert and Schumann’s extraordinary settings of Heine’s poems, creating a concert experience infused with personal and political drama.

Ensemble for the Romantic Century celebrated its seventh season by embarking on a revealing journey through the imaginations of four writers. Delving into a broad spectrum of the Romantic sensibility, each of the four concerts presented a highly individual vision of an imaginary life, from the sublimation of reality into poetry and fiction to a visionary voyage to the outer limits of space. The concerts contemplated the myriad facets of human fantasy and creativity, of our desire to transcend reality by constructing alternative narratives, and of our belief in the limitless potential of the human mind.

Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther: A Romantic Liederabend
The impact of Goethe’s masterpiece The Sorrows of Young Werther on the Romantic imagination can be inferred from the fact that Napoleon read the book seven times, and by the wave of suicides it sparked throughout Europe. In this novella, which stands at the birth of the Romantic movement, Goethe traces the inner life of Werther, a quintessential romantic hero who goes mad and commits suicide because of unrequited love. This dramatic love story, which provided a mirror for thousands of forlorn young men by depicting an imagined love life, was presented in the context of a Liederabend, or evening song recital. Our Liederabend featured Schumann’s magnificent song cycle Dichterliebe, one of the most compelling musical depictions of unrequited love, interspersed with songs for mezzo-soprano by Schubert, Liszt, Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Mahler, and Pfitzner.

Tolstoy’s Last Days
Relive the dramatic final days of Tolstoy’s life when at the age of 83 he fled his wife and estates only to die tragically eleven days later at the stationmaster’s house in the Astapovo train station. A narrative based on diaries and letters of Tolstoy and his wife, combined with excerpts from his short story, The Death of Ivan Ilych, recounted his final predicament, during which the imagined life and death of a fictional character closely resembles the writer’s personal voyage. The text, intertwined with music by Rachmaninoff for violin, cello, and piano, including the Trio Elégiaque and the haunting Vocalise, created a theatrical concert that epitomizes Russian tragedy and soulfulness.

Emily Dickinson: Herself to Her a Music
Emily Dickinson was one of the most elusive artistic personalities of the 19th century, living as a recluse for most of her adult life. Dickinson’s self-imposed solitude allowed her to construct a world of images, sensations, emotions and thoughts ruled solely by the breadth and refinement of her imagination. By delving deep into her inner world, she produced a body of poetry that remains exceedingly haunting and mysterious. Music figured prominently in Dickinson’s poetry, and this concert offered a journey through her soul from the perspective of music. A dramatic monologue based on her letters and poems formed the textual backdrop for the magnificent music of Amy Beach, an artist whose phenomenal musical talents resonate with Dickinson’s otherworldly poetic language.

From the Earth to the Moon
Our 2008 Gala concert dramatized the face-to face meeting between the French writer Jules Verne and the young and enterprising American journalist Nelly Bly when she stopped on her trip around the world to meet the aging and infirm author. Bly’s voyage was intended to mirror Verne’s own Around the World in 80 Days. Although Verne was limited by physical ailments, he was able to transcend these limitations by bringing to life the unsuspected new worlds that populated his mind. Verne and Bly were linked by a common belief in the unbounded powers of human imagination and the possibilities inherent in a completely visionary future. Film clips from Georges Méliès’ Le voyage dans la lune merged with French and American chamber music in a multimedia production that illustrated the wonder and excitement that pervaded the imaginative and intellectual worlds at the beginning of the 20th century.
See photos of this performance.

In its sixth season, the Ensemble for the Romantic Century created a tableau of Paris in a series of four theatrical concerts. The artistic, literary and political changes that electrified Paris since the end of the 19th century were evoked in a fusion of theater and chamber & vocal music.

The Dreyfus Affair
When the Jewish captain Alfred Dreyfus was accused of treason in 1894 by a French military tribunal and imprisoned, French society erupted into a fireball of anti-Semitism and political partisanship that called into question the very nature of French identity. This tragic private drama played out in a very public arena; not only the press but also artists, writers, and musicians became entangled in a controversy which lasted almost two decades and continues to resonate to this day. A poignant script based on Dreyfus’s letters and diaries and other contemporary sources — such as Zola’s article J’Accuse — is interwoven with music of transcendent pathos, including Franck’s Piano Quintet, Ravel’s Deux mélodies hébraïques, and arias from Halévy’s La Juive, capturing the human and social drama of this turbulent period.

The Young Arthur Rubinstein
Arthur Rubinstein was one of the most magnetic musical personalities of the 20th century. He had a special relationship with Paris, a city he loved so much that he vowed “never to live anywhere else in the world but in this divine city !” Turn-of-the-century Paris was the most cosmopolitan center in Europe; there Rubinstein befriended some of the greatest composers of the time, whose music he championed throughout his life. A script based on Rubinstein’s memoirs captures his struggles and triumphs amidst the glittering musical life of Paris, featuring music by composers whom Rubinstein knew personally, including Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Falla, Szymanowski, Stravinsky, and Skriabin.

Satie, Bohemian from Montmartre: A Cabaret
In the late 1800’s, the Parisian cabaret was a stage for artists, poets, and musicians whose credo was wit, inventiveness, and irreverence. Erik Satie, a paradigm of eccentricity, electrified the cabarets with his flamboyant personality, biting humor, and outrageous pronouncements. This concert recaptures the kaleidoscopic life of a Montmartre cabaret through humorous and satirical writings by Satie and his collaborator, the poet Alphonse Allais. A dramatic story from Satie’s past will unfold underneath the glittering surface of anecdotes and social satire, fueled by the music of Satie, Debussy, and contemporaneous cabaret songs and instrumental works. The Parisian cabaret chanteuse Denise Bahous, who revived the repertoire of the famous Yvette Guilbert from Le Chat Noir, will join ERC musicians.

Peggy Guggenheim stripped bare by her bachelors
The sensational life of the American patroness Peggy Guggenheim is the focus of a musical and cultural journey through the 20th century. Tragedy and comedy intermingle as Peggy’s very sense of self is dramatized through her forays into the artistic world, her relationships with protégés, and her traumatic love affairs. The effervescent creativity of the 20th century emerges in a musical program that covers a dizzying variety of genres and styles, with works by Poulenc, Milhaud, Stravinsky, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Nino Rota, Barber, Berio, Ned Rorem and others. This variegated musical canvas for mixed ensemble, actors, tenor and soprano is woven into a script based on Peggy’s autobiography, a tragicomic tale infused with the drama of a fractured identity.
See photos of this performance.

Ensemble for the Romantic Century's fifth season.

Tolstoy’s Last Days
Relive the dramatic final days of Tolstoy’s life when at the age of 83 he fled his wife and estates only to die tragically eleven days later at the stationmaster’s house in the Astapovo train station. A narrative based on diaries and letters of Tolstoy and his wife, combined with excerpts from his short story, The Death of Ivan Ilych, recounts his final predicament. The text, intertwined with Rachmaninoff’s intensely expressive music for violin, cello, and piano, including the Trio Elégiaque and the haunting Vocalise, create a theatrical concert that epitomizes Russian tragedy and soulfulness.

My Heart, My Serpent: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
The psychological and spiritual journeys of Nietzsche and his alter-ego Zarathustra are portrayed in this dramatic Liederabend. The compelling language of Nietzsche’s masterpiece, along with excerpts from his letters and philosophical writings, will portray a man in search of his true self as he struggles to free himself from the grip of madness and painful memories. Works by some of the greatest Romantic composers, the enchanting sounds of a children’s chorus and baritone, and instrumental interludes will create an unforgettable musical tapestry that includes Brahms’s Four Serious Songs, Wolf’s Prometheus, and Liszt’s dramatic recitation The Sad Monk.

L’Innocente
Life imitates art in this theatrical concert based on D’Annunzio’s disturbing novel L’Innocente. A story of love, betrayal, and infanticide, the performance offers a mirror reflecting the passionate and destructive love affair between the Italian poet and novelist Gabriele D’Annunzio and Elonora Duse, one of the greatest actresses of her day, his perfect muse. An artist who immersed himself in the extremes of sensuality and luxury, D’Annunzio found in Duse his perfect muse and the embodiment of his most memorable heroines. Excerpts from L’Innocente, the letters of D’Annunzio and Duse, and the music of Puccini, Respighi, Busoni, and Verdi tell a story that reveals the tempestuous intensity of the Italian soul. [photos]

Van Gogh’s Ear
Hear the tormented voice of Van Gogh in letters that reveal his inner struggles and his strong sensitivity to sound. Van Gogh often found solace in the inspirational power of music, an art whose expressive qualities he tried to emulate in his paintings and whose sensorial qualities permeated his vibrant palette. Readings of his letters to his brother Theo will create a counterpoint to chamber and vocal works by Franck, Fauré, Chausson, and Debussy, including Chausson’s shimmering Chanson perpétuelle for mezzo-soprano and piano quintet. [photos]

Emily Dickinson: Herself to Her a Music
Emily Dickinson was one of the most elusive artistic personalities of the 19th century. A recluse for most of her adult life, in her self-imposed solitude she produced a body of poetry that remains haunting and mysterious. Music figured prominently in Dickinson’s imagination, and this concert will offer a journey through her soul from the perspective of music. A dramatic monologue based on her letters and poems will form the textual backdrop for the music of Amy Beach.

Dora: A Case of Hysteria
In 1900, for a period of three months, Freud undertook the psychoanalysis of a seventeen year old named Dora. Caught in a web of intrigue and sexual abuse, Dora developed a number of hysteric symptoms and was brought for treatment. At the time, Freud himself was going through a period of self-doubt and disillusionment. Dora’s case reveals the repressive social milieu which permeated all aspects of fin-de-siècle Vienna. The program includes chamber and vocal works of Alma and Gustav Mahler, Erich Korngold, and Richard Strauss. Narration will be based on Freud’s case history and correspondence.

Fanny Mendelssohn: Out of Her Brother’s Shadow
The career of Fanny Mendelssohn was a textbook example of the cultural and social constraints that curtailed the artistic development of women during the 19th century. A composer and performer of exceptional talent, Fanny lived most of her life in the shadow of her brother Felix, whose success as a composer severely handicapped Fanny’s own development. The correspondence between the siblings provide a striking testimony of their conflicts, aspirations, and mutual influence. The program will highlight Felix’s and Fanny’s remarkable compositional legacy and Fanny’s role as one of the most important salonnières of the Romantic period.

George Sand: Letters from Majorca
The relationship between Chopin and the French writer Aurore Dudevant (George Sand) galvanized the Romantic century. George Sand was Chopin’s lover, mentor, and mother figure. She had a crucial role in the compositional history of several masterpieces of Chopin’s maturity, foremost among them the 24 Preludes, op. 28. This collection of musical jewels was completed over the course of some years during which Chopin was recovering from tuberculosis, mostly at the Valdemosa monastery in Majorca. Letters by George Sand and Chopin to their friends will illustrate the performance of the complete cycle of Preludes, including two lesser known works not included in the set.

The Sorrows of Young Werther: A Romantic Liederabend
Goethe’s masterpiece The Sorrows of Young Werther left an indelible imprint on the Romantic imagination. Goethe traces the inner life of Werther, a quintessential romantic hero who goes mad and commits suicide because of unrequited love. This dramatic love story will be presented in the context of a Liederabend, or evening song recital. Our Liederabend will feature Schumann’s magnificent song cycle Dichterliebe, interspersed with songs by Schubert, Liszt, Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Mahler, and Pfitzner.

The Vibrant Palette: Van Gogh and Music
In Van Gogh's letters he revealed a strong sensitivity to sound and to the inspirational power of music, an art whose expressive qualities he tried to emulate in his paintings. The sensorial qualities of Van Gogh’s rich and vibrant palette found many parallels in French music of his time, an association that will be highlighted in this concert through readings of his letters to his brother Theo, as a counterpoint to chamber and vocal works by Franck, Fauré, Chausson, and Debussy, among others.

Schubert’s Dream
Schubert’s short story My Dream, a tale of exile and homecoming, opens new insights into many facets of Schubert’s life and personality. Having performed and composed exclusively among a private circle of friends, Schubert was one of the most elusive of Romantic composers. This concert will highlight Schubert’s only known literary work amid performances of some of his most magnificent chamber music and songs.

None but the Lonely Heart: The Life of Tchaikovsky
Plagued with doubts about the greatness of his music, tormented by the fear of discovery of his homosexuality, and trapped in a marriage to a woman who was eventually committed to an insane asylum, Tchaikovsky nevertheless created some of the most beloved and inspired music of the 19th century. This concert will feature Tchaikovsky’s chamber music and songs.

Sublime Sorcery: Music and the Supernatural
The supernatural was one of the most important aspects of the Romantic movement in music. The suggestive power of music, its capacity to stimulate the imagination, and its grip on the subconscious made it an ideal medium for expressing the mysterious turns of the human psyche. In celebration of Halloween, this concert will feature haunting instrumental and vocal works by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt and Saint-Saëns, among others, having as their subject supernatural phenomena and the human perception of the otherworld. Narration from the writings of E.T.A. Hoffmann.

A Singing Flame: The Soul of Spanish Music
In the Romantic imagination, Spain was a land of passion, desire, and sensuality. Towards the end of the 19th century, Spanish culture infused new blood in the development of nationalism in Europe and captivated the imagination of many foreign composers. The sensual melodic lines and vibrant rhythm of Spanish music will be showcased in a concert featuring works by Manuel de Falla, Granados, Albéniz, and Turina, in addition to works by foreign composers inspired by the fire and passion of Spain. Narration from 19th-century letters, diaries, and other writings about Spain and its culture.

The Young Arthur Rubinstein
The pianist Arthur Rubinstein was one of the most magnetic musical personalities of the 20th century. In the course of his long career, he met all the major composers of the century, befriended the greatest performers, and left an indelible mark as one of the most sensitive interpreters of the Romantic repertory. During his formative years, he traveled extensively and established enduring friendships with composers whose music he continued to champion throughout his life. This concert will feature works by composers whom Rubinstein knew personally in his early years.

The World of Yesterday: The Life and Loves of Alma Mahler
In his memoir Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday) the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig looked with great nostalgia to the period in Viennese history immediately before the collapse of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. The last decades of the 19th century, the Viennese golden autumn, also marked the twilight of Romanticism. The lush sonorities and profound emotionality of the music of this period will be showcased through vocal and instrumental works by Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, Alma Mahler, Zemlinsky, and Kreisler. Narration from composers’ letters and Stefan Zweig’s memoir.

Paderewski in Paris: A Fin-de-Siècle Sensation
Focusing on the years that Paderewski spent in Paris in the late 1880's and early 1890's, this concert will highlight his connections with French musicians and artists and the important role of the Parisian salons in launching Paderewski’s international career. Among the works in the program are Paderewski’s Violin Sonata and Saint-Saëns’s Polonaise for two pianos, a work that he dedicated to Paderewski and with whom he gave the premiere.

The Symbol in Word, Image and Sound
The development of the Symbolist movement in France at the end of the 19th century, which soon spread throughout Europe, represented a turning point in the conception of art, poetry and music. Music was a central feature of the Symbolist aesthetics. This concert will focus on musical works directly linked to this movement and will feature the poetry of Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and Mallarmé. Among the works included are songs by Debussy, Fauré, Ravel and Duparc highlighting different settings of select Symbolist poems; the original version of Debussy’s Syrinx for flute and declamation; and instrumental works including Debussy’s Piano Trio.

Robert and Clara Schumann: A Love Story in Music
The love between Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck is one of the most endearing and inspiring stories in the history of Western music. Their courtship and marriage will be chronicled in a program featuring songs by Robert and Clara, Clara’s magnificent Piano Trio and the slow movement of her Piano Concerto; and Robert’s Frauenliebe und Leben, among other works.

Secret Messages and Dedications
Featuring music written within the circle of Robert and Clara Schumann, Brahms, Joachim and Dietrich, this concert will highlight the coded messages that the composers incorporated into their music in order to communicate to one another their deepest feelings. Among the works featured are the F.A.E. Sonata (a joint project of Brahms, Schumann and Dietrich), early lieder by Brahms and works by Josef Joachim and Clara Schumann.

The Other Chopin: The Chamber Music
Chopin has such a strong grip on our imagination as the quintessential composer for the piano that we tend to forget the other aspects of his creative genius. This concert will explore his chamber works, which include the magnificent Sonata for Cello and Piano, op. 65, as well as lesser known pieces such as the Rondo for two pianos, the Piano Trio op. 8, and the Variations for Flute and Piano on a theme from Rossini’s La Cenerentola.

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