With this volume we reach the conclusion of a multi-year and multi-disc exploration of the music – and, through the music, the lives – of Clara, Robert, and Johannes. Their creative output reflects not only their individual brilliance and characters, but also the role of the creative artist in their time and across the centuries. In grappling with the abstract symphonic form at a moment in music history when storytelling was in vogue, Robert and Johannes carried forward a vital mantle, moulding it into their own shape. Clara, a musician of breathtaking skill and breadth, juggling the pressures of a solo career and motherhood, gifted us intimately touching and brilliantly crafted songs and chamber music.
It is my hope that across the span of these recordings you have been able to enjoy the mutual inspiration and admiration that is evident between these three friends. It is my hope also that through the prism of these programs and through the brilliance of our guests – from the interpretations and improvisations of Gabriela Montero and Stewart Goodyear, to the joyous chamber music of Yosuke Kawasaki, Angela Hewitt, Rachel Mercer, Adrianne Pieczonka, and Liz Upchurch – you have garnered a sense of how music was presented and consumed in their time. Fluid, improvisational, tautly constructed, intimate, and deeply personal, they speak to us across the ages.