Schwetzingen SWR Festival: The Power of Beauty

An evening to draw strength. The resident artist Sophie Pacini plays her personal heart pieces. Pain and hope, sorrow and comfort: this is the spectrum into which the Schwetzingen resident artist Sophie Pacini invites her audience with her program "Bittersweet." In 2025, the pianist released a CD under this title featuring uplifting heart pieces, and this concert now expands the circle of composers and works. Schubert's late A-flat major Impromptu and the middle one of his three A minor sonatas, along with Schumann's Carnaval, Mozart's melancholic D minor Fantasy, and Liszt's sixth Hungarian Rhapsody: these are great masterpieces that expand the mind and heart. We will also get to know a long-forgotten composer: with "Souvenance," Cécile Chaminade draws a connection back to Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words. Suddenly, a quote from Anton Bruckner comes to mind: "Because the current state of the world is a weakness in a spiritual sense, I flee to strength and write powerful music." This strength is shared. "It's worth it," says Sophie Pacini about "Bittersweet," "to believe in your dreams and not to give up. If I can pass on even a little of what my music has given me, that makes me happy."