„If you work on a piece with an open mind and heart,“ says Elisabeth Leonskaja, „you can understand the music of any composer.“ Classicism and Romanticism are at the centre of her repertoire, but she also reveres Bach, is interested in works of the present day and is dedicated to the composers known as the „Second Viennese School“. She already played Alban Berg's early sonata of 1907/08 at the conservatory; Schönberg and Webern were introduced to her in private studies by the Romanian-Russian musician Philipp Herschkowitz, who was himself a student of both of them in Vienna around 1930. In the second part of the concert, Elisabeth Leonskaja has a partner of choice at her side in Strauss's rarely heard melodrama „Enoch Arden“: "Encounters with 'word people' - actors, directors - are stimulating for me. For a few years now, I have had a wonderful friendship with Corinna Kirchhoff, an actress who is as great as she is special, and who is also an admirable connoisseur of music ..."