Concert Program IV

Leipzig

When Georg Philipp Telemann turned down the post of Leipzig Music Director and Cantor, the city begrudgingly offered the position to its second choice: Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach’s years in Leipzig produced some of the greatest music ever composed—from the St. Matthew Passion and Mass in b minor to scores of keyboard concerti—thus cementing that city’s place as one of music history’s most important locales. A century later, two of the Romantic era’s greatest composers would likewise call Leipzig home: Felix Mendelssohn, who served as Director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and founder of the Leipzig Conservatory, and Robert Schumann, whose mighty Piano Quintet concludes this summer’s fourth Concert Program.