10. Main Evening Concert

The 22-year-old Mozart wrote this lovely Sonata during his extended stay in Mannheim, a stopping-off point on his ill-fated journey to Paris. Mozart had fallen in love with a beautiful young singer, Aloisia Weber (the elder sister of Constanze, his eventual wife) and came up with a million excuses to avoid the journey to Paris. The Sonata’s slow movement betrays his state of mind.

Schumann’s three Violin Sonatas all date from his last years in Düsseldorf. In those four years he composed no less than fifty compositions including a huge amount of chamber music for his wife Clara to perform at home with their many musical friends.

Beethoven’s great A minor quartet was composed to celebrate his recovery from illness, a song of thanksgiving that is one of the great slow movements in quartet literature.