The elective affinity between the human voice and the clarinet has been described time and again and has inspired composers to the most intense dialog.

It now blossoms once again in the trio of mezzo-soprano Sarah Romberger with her brother, clarinettist Daniel Romberger, and Fil Liotis on the grand piano. In an arrangement by the clarinettist, two tender songs by Brahms (originally for alto, viola and piano) are heard at the beginning, which he intended for the musician friends Joseph and Amalie Joachim, whose marriage was in crisis. However, it is not known whether "Gestillte Sehnsucht", set to a text by Friedrich Rückert, which sings of a peaceful, serene mood at sunset, actually contributed to the couple's reconciliation.

The Five Songs op. 15 by Richard Strauss, the first complete song cycle in his oeuvre of 220 songs, serve as a transition to the present day.

Almost twenty years before his first major operatic success with "Salome", he composed the cycle op. 15, the first song of which, "Madrigal", sets a text by Michelangelo Buonarroti.

The highlight of the recital is a composition commissioned by the Kölner Philharmonie and Heidelberger Frühling: five "liebeslieder" by Philipp Maintz on texts by Elisabeth Plessen, written between 2015 and 2021 in Vecoli in Tuscany, Plessen's second home. In the last poem "Augenmerk", the sensual, melancholy nature poem recalls her partner, the theater director Peter Zadek, who died in 2009. Philipp Maintz composed a finely balanced interweaving of three individually moving voices for mezzo-soprano, bass clarinet and piano.

Concert without intermission