Lena Stein-Schneider, who was born Helene Meyerstein in Leipzig where she studied piano and voice, suffered a deeply moving fate. During the Nazi era she had to contend with systematic ostracism and a performance ban as a musician, composer and writer. In 1942 she was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp which she left with the transport of the Swiss delegation after her liberation in a state of complete exhaustion. She returned to Berlin from Switzerland and, after decades of gruelling compensation proceedings, received a small compensation payment shortly before her death.
Originally composed for cello, the salon piece Nocturno is ideally suited for concert program-mes dedicated to this genre, or for those which require a short piece to provide light contrast.
