Farewell and Return is a program which celebrates the journey out of the Romantic era. It starts backwards with one of the most personal work of a corner stone of twentieth century music, Dimitri Shostakovich. The cello sonata op.40 is lyrical in spirit and even his idiosyncratic rhythmic explosions imply an expansions of feelings and a romantic desire to manifest the essence of the composer’s inner being to the world. Schumann writes the Adagio & Allegro after the failure of the European Revolutions of 1848 and the higly personal form of this inspired work manifest the return of the composer to his soul, after a moment of highly social and political hope. It is a celebration of the magic beauty and deep sadness of being lost in the territory of his own art.

Finally Brahms’ sonata op.99 written in its heroic dimension is one of the most compete farewell to the Romantic art. This music express all the nostalgia of artist that felt to be born “too late” and too far from the Classical and Romantic tradition which he concludes. Therefore all the big gestures of this work have the strength of the last effort, the intensity of the farewell, the intimacy of  a return back home, into the heart of a man isolated but still able to flourish in beauty at every note.