The sonnet is an almost mythical literary form. It is a structure of fourteen lines – a kind of labyrinth of words that encompasses love, time, faith, and human fragility. This form, which has fascinated poets and creators for centuries and means "little song" or "little sound," will come to life at the Magic of Music Club during a literary concert! Franz Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets and Benjamin Britten's vocal cycle Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo will be performed.

The evening's musical program will be performed by Stein Skjervold (baritone, Norway) and Eglė Andrejevaitė (piano). Both performers have been playing together since 2012, and their creative collaboration has been purposefully developed in the field of romantic and contemporary music. Their joint projects have been performed at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic and various chamber music concerts, and their programs often combine literature, vocal and instrumental music.

Between musical pieces, actor Ignas Ciplijauskas, already well known to the Magic of Music Club audience, will read William Shakespeare's sonnets.

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More about sonnets:

Franz Liszt's Sonnets of Petrarch:

Originally composed as songs for tenor, the piano versions of these works, which Liszt included in the second, Italian, year of his Années de Pélérinage, retain a strong sense of the sung melodic line. All three songs are based on sonnets, or Canzone, by the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374). They are meditations on love, specifically the poet's passionate love for Laura de Noves. It is interesting that both the songs and the solo versions exist in two completely different variants – in different forms and variations.

Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo:

This was the first complete song cycle that B. Britten wrote for Peter Pears and dedicated to him. It is a passionate and romantic performance of Michelangelo's poems, written in the original (Italian) language. Throughout the cycle, as in the text, a wide range of feelings towards the object of love is depicted: alternately passionate, sorrowful, fiery, and gentle.

William Shakespeare's Sonnets:

These 154 sonnets, published in 1609, explore love, desire, beauty, time, and mortality. With creative rhythms and vivid twists of thought, Shakespeare rewrote the English sonnet, creating poems that are both intimate and timeless. Poets have drawn inspiration from them for centuries, and today they remain a living testimony to the power of language to convey feelings, imagination, and the fleeting beauty of life.