Beethoven: Love Elegies

In 1792, a brash, confident, and energetic Beethoven arrived in Vienna, and within a few years he had been embraced by the aristocracy as a rising star. Amid this glittering society, Beethoven often fell in love with women above his social class.

The story of his young years and his attempts at finding love are depicted in a tragicomic script based on Beethoven’s letters and contemporaries’ recollections of the composer interwoven with Beethoven’s music.

Beethoven: Love Elegies was part of our 2010-2011 Season.

Proust's Court of Love

In voluntary exile for the last decade of his life, immersed in a tangled knot of neuroses, eccentricities, anxieties, and doubts, Marcel Proust recaptured his experiences and immortalized the loves of his real and fictional lives in his sweeping novel À la recherche du temps perdu, a breathtaking voyage through the unconscious.

ERC’s theatrical concert features a script that draws upon Proust’s novel, his letters, and the reminiscences of his faithful housekeeper, Céleste Albaret, the only person who witnessed the creation of his masterpiece. Focusing on the perpetual conflict between love and jealousy, the script dramatizes these emotions in tandem with a selection of musical works that emulate the modernity of Proust’s superbly calibrated language. The author’s stream-of-consciousness technique and his detailed depiction of the fluctuations of human behavior will be mirrored in music of comparable complexity, richness of texture, and sensorial beauty.

Proust’s Court of Love was part of our 2010-2011 Season.

Seduction, Smoke, and Music: The Love Story of Chopin and George Sand

Seduction, Smoke, and Music tells the love story of Frédéric Chopin, the renowned composer, and George Sand, the infamous cigar-smoking French novelist and feminist. The performance explores the unfolding of their passionate relationship over a decade.Seduction, Smoke, and Music, a theatrical concert written and conceived by Ensemble for the Romantic Century.

Eve Wolf and Max Barros, Artistic Directors, Ensemble for the Romantic Century. 
Barrett Wissman, Executive Producer, Barrett Wissman and IMG Artists. 
James Melo, scriptwriter.

Directed by Donald T. Sanders. 
Production design by Vanessa James.

 The production of Seduction, Smoke, and Music: The Love Story of Chopin and George Sand was part of our 2004-2005 and 2010-2011 Seasons.

Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart: The Strange Love of Tchaikovsky and Nadezhda von Meck

If the story of Piotr Ilych Tchaikovsky’s relationship with his patroness Nadezhda von Meck had not existed it would have to be invented. In a relationship that lasted fourteen years and that was conducted entirely through letters, Tchaikovsky and von Meck were united through the invincible power of a love that could never be consummated. 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 repeatedly tried to express in music the full spectrum of love. In doing so, he created some of the most beloved and inspired music of the nineteenth century.

For Tchaikovsky and von Meck, music became a vehicle for the expression of their private feelings and their unspoken emotions. The concert features Tchaikovsky’s intensely expressive chamber music and songs, interlaced with his correspondence with von Meck.

Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart: The Strange Love of Tchaikovsky and Nadezhda von Meck was part of our 2003-2004 and 2010-2011 Seasons.

Nietzsche: My Heart, My Serpent: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The psychological and spiritual journey 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, portray a man in search of his true self as he struggles to free himself from the grip of madness.

Lieder for baritone and piano, along with the enchanting sounds of a children’s chorus and French horn, create a musical tapestry that includes Brahms’s Four Serious Songs, Wolf’s Prometheus, and Liszt’s dramatic recitation The Sad Monk.

Nietzsche: My Heart, My Serpent: Thus Spoke Zarathustra was part of our 2009-2010 and 2005-2006 Seasons.

Wilde: De Profundis: The Exiles of Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde’s (1854-1900) personal life, brought into the glare of public scrutiny during his trial for homosexuality, intruded on society’s appreciation of his genius. Humiliated, 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.

Wilde: De Profundis: The Exiles of Oscar Wilde was part of our 2009-2010 Season.

Schubert's Dream

Schubert’s short story My Dream, a tale of exile and homecoming, opens new insights into the artist’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 the story, many of these feelings come to the surface as Schubert recounts a dream of being 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 exquisite chamber music and songs, including his second Piano Trio and selected songs from Die Winterreise andSchwanengesang

Schubert’s Dream was part of our 2009-2010 and 2003-2004 Seasons.

Toscanini: Too much of the Absolute in my heart

Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957), the most celebrated conductor in history, was also admired 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, giving benefit concerts to further the war effort, and helping other musicians immigrate and find work.

This program is 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. 
The program also draws upon his letters to Mussolini, Hitler, and Roosevelt. All reveal the thoughts of an artist who had the courage to say no to the Fascist regimes.

This theatrical concert features 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. These works are interwoven with an audio collage of the Italian Racial Laws of 1938 and Toscanini’s rehearsals of Aida.

Toscanini: Too much of the Absolute in my heart was part of our 2008-2009 Season.

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.

In this program, the lovers’ letters, diaries, and reminiscences are 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.

Chopin: Letters from Majorca was part of our 2008-2009 and 2004-2005 Seasons.

Heine: First They Burn Books

In 1831, Heinrich Heine, perhaps 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 Jewishness in Music, this theatrical concert examines censorship in Heine’s time and beyond, into the Nazi period. Works of the “degenerate” composers banned by the Nazis, as well as some of Schubert and Schumann’s extraordinary settings of Heine’s poems, create a concert experience infused with political drama.

Heine: First They Burn Books was part of our 2008-2009 Season.

Tolstoy's Last Days

This theatrical concert recounts 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 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, during which the imagined life and death of a fictional character closely parallels the writer’s own personal voyage.

The text, intertwined with music by Rachmaninoff for violin, cello, and piano, including the Trio Elégiaque and the haunting Vocalise, creates a theatrical concert that epitomizes Russian tragedy and soulfulness.

Tolstoy’s Last Days was part of our 2007-2008 and 2005-2006 Seasons.

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 figures prominently in Dickinson’s poetry, and this concert offers a journey through her soul from the perspective of music. A dramatic monologue based on her letters and poems forms the textual backdrop for the magnificent music of Amy Beach, an artist whose musical talents resonate with Dickinson’s otherworldly poetic language.

Emily Dickinson: Herself to Her a Music was part of our 2007-2008 and 2004-2005 Seasons.

From the Earth to the Moon

This theatrical concert dramatizes the face-to face meeting between the French writer Jules Verne and the young American journalist Nelly Bly, who stopped on her trip around the world to meet the aging and infirm author. Bly’s voyage was intended to simulate Verne’s own Around the World in 80 Days. Although Verne was limited by physical ailments, he was able to bring 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 of a completely visionary future.

Film clips from Georges Méliès’ Le voyage dans la lune merges with French and American chamber music in a multimedia production that illustrates the wonder and excitement pervading the intellectual imagination at the beginning of the 20th century.

From the Earth to the Moon was part of our 2007-2008 Season.

Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther: A Romantic Liederabend

Napoleon read The Sorrows of Young Werther seven times — the same book that sparked a wave of suicide throughout Europe. In this novella, which stands at the birth of the Romantic movement, Goethe traces the inner life of Werther, who goes mad and commits suicide because of unrequited love. This dramatic love story, which provided a mirror for thousands of forlorn young men through its depiction of an imagined love life, is presented in the context of an evening song recital.

This Liederabend features 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.

Goethe: The Sorrows of Young Werther: A Romantic Liederabend was part of our 2007-2008 and 2003-2004 Seasons.

The Dreyfus Affair

When the Jewish captain Alfred Dreyfus was accused of treason in 1894 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 in F minor, Ravel’s Deux mélodies hébraïques, and arias from Halévy’s La Juive, capturing the human and sociopolitical 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.

The Young Arthur Rubinstein was part of our 2006-2007 and 2002-2003 Seasons.

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, the epitome 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 unfolds 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.

Satie, Bohemian from Montmartre: A Cabaret was part of our 2006-2007 Season.

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.

Peggy Guggenheim Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors was part of our 2006-2007 Season.

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. 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.

L’Innocente was part of our 2005-2006 Season.

Van Gogh's Ear

The tormented voice of Van Gogh is revealed in letters discussing 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.

A script based on 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.

Van Gogh’s Ear was part of our 2005-2006 Season.

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.

With a script based on Freud’s Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, this 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.

Dora: A Case of Hysteria was part of our 2004-2005 Season.

Fanny Mendelssohn: Out of Her Brother's Shadow

The career of Fanny Mendelssohn was a textbook example of the cultural and social constraints on 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 highlights Felix’s and Fanny’s remarkable compositional legacy and Fanny’s role as one of the most important salonnières of the Romantic period.

Fanny Mendelssohn: Out of Her Brother’s Shadow was part of our 2004-2005 Season.

Sublime Sorcery: Music and the Supernatural

The supernatural played a starring role in the music of the Romantic Movement. 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.

This concert features haunting instrumental and vocal works by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt and Saint-Saëns. All these works were inspired by supernatural phenomena and the human perception of the otherworld. The music was accompanied by narration from the writings of E.T.A. Hoffmann.

Sublime Sorcery: Music and the Supernatural was part of our 2002-2003 Season.

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 rhythms of Spanish music are 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.

A Singing Flame: The Soul of Spanish Music was part of our 2002-2003 Season.

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 nostalgically to the period in Viennese history that preceded the collapse of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. The last decades of the 19th century, known as 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, composers’ letters and Stefan Zweig’s memoir.

The World of Yesterday: The Life and Loves of Alma Mahler was part of our 2002-2003 Season.

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.

Paderewski in Paris: A Fin-de-Siècle Sensation was part of our 2001-2002 Season.

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.

The Symbol in Word, Image and Sound was part of our 2001-2002 Season.

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’sFrauenliebe und Leben, among other works.

Robert and Clara Schumann: A Love Story in Music was part of our 2001-2002 Season.

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.

Secret Messages and Dedications was part of our 2001-2002 Season.

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.

The Other Chopin: The Chamber Music was part of our 2001-2002 Season.