NOSPR / Robin O’Neill / live streaming - NOSPR

In William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, the protagonist couldn’t recover from an attempted rape on a New York City Subway car for a few days. Eventually, she found the courage to turn on a small transistor radio on her bedside table. „But unknown to herself, she must have been open and receptive to the mysteriously therapeutic powers of W. A. Mozart, M.D., for the very first phrases of the music—the great Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major—caused her to shiver all over with uncomplicated delight”. One wonders if she would have reacted similarly had Styron told her to listen to Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major. Soon after the manuscript of the Concerto had been discovered in the archives of the National Museum in Prague in 1961, the piece became a staple part of contemporary cellists’ repertoire.