This program is about the triumph over loss and human struggles. Both Mozart and Anna Clyne wrote these works following the passing of their respective mothers, and Schubert wrote his Fantasie while he himself was actively ill, but in each of these instances the composers were able to find the strength to express their pain and grief to give the world a lasting impression of their struggle through a permanent score. While Chopin’s and Auerbach’s works exemplify the eerie and powerful sensations that often fill such moments, the final movement of Schubert shows us that the will to persevere can get us through our most difficult moments.

A word that comes to my mind that describes all of these compositions is saudade, a word in Portuguese and Galician term that means “a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing… and hopefulness towards something over which one has no control”.

I wanted to portray pieces of contrasting nationalistic characters, creating a combination of nostalgic and ethnic flavors of Czech, Jewish, Norwegian, and Gypsy music. Smetana’s From My Homeland, written only four years before his death, depicts a mood of nostalgic yearning, particularly in the Andantino with its poignant Gypsy sentiment, yet the piece also gives a hint of optimism and earthiness.

Grieg’s Sonata, while written in “the euphoria of my honeymoon”, often projects the “characteristically pensive and coolly melancholic moods”, very much the language of Scandinavian music, combined with lively Norwegian folk music. Both of these two compositions of Smetana and Grieg share a similar yet distinct sentiment; an intermix of melancholy and optimism. The spiritual elements of Jewish and Christian themes are evident in Bloch’s Sonata No. 2. His use of a motif from the works of “Jewish Cycle”, coupled with a Gregorian Credo, the Gloria of the Mass Kyrie Fons bonitatis, and a traditional Amen depict a spiritual and sensually ethnic work.