50. Crespo Series

Dana Zemtsov and Anna Fedorova regularly perform together and recently brought out a CD called Fathers and Daughters. Regular Festival-goers will remember a spectacular late-night they did together in ’22. When they offered the Mendelssohn Viola Sonata, I had to admit I did not know it. It is a very early work that he wrote when he was thirteen and never published. The score surfaced eventually and it was published in 1966. It must be one of the earliest sonatas composed for viola, as opposed to arrangements of gamba sonatas. Schumann’s Märchenbilder can also lay claim to be one of the earliest solo works for viola. It dates from his last years when he was composing a series of chamber works for musical evenings at home in Düsseldorf with members of his orchestra. The fourth movement, a melancholy lullaby, will be familiar to all listeners. Manuel de Falla’s six popular songs is of course an arrangement of those delightful songs.