Anna Lucia Richter mezzo-soprano; Gerold Huber piano

Stefan Heucke responded with enthusiasm when Anna Lucia Richter suggested that he should compose a work to mark the 150th anniversary of Rainer Maria Rilke’s birth in 2025 and the centenary of his death in 2026. The German composer’s cycle of 13 Rilke settings, which captures the emotional peaks and troughs of the poet’s life, receives its UK première this evening, set in company with Robert Schumann’s peerless, impassioned treatment of another great poet’s reflections on love.