Concert Program V

Berlin

Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Berlin emerged and then handily secured its status as one of Europe’s most vital cultural centers. It was to Berlin that the aging J. S. Bach traveled in 1747, where King Frederick the Great issued the contrapuntal challenge that yielded Bach’s monumental Musical Offering. Mozart and Beethoven subsequently appeared at the same court, before Friedrich Wilhelm II; Mozart honored the King of Prussia (and amateur cellist) with his Prussian Quartets, notable for their virtuosic cello parts, while Beethoven composed his first two cello sonatas for the occasion. Concert Program V concludes with the Piano Trio no. 2 in c minor by Mendelssohn, who spent his formative years in the German capital.