The darkly dramatic paintings of Francisco Goya depict the grotesque and supernatural; to Alexi Kenney, the artist “simultaneously looks back to Caravaggio in his use of dramatic lighting and gruesome themes, and forward to the bizarre surrealism of Dali.” The violinist’s program begins with Schubert’s String Trio, filled with longing and nostalgia. In a triptych of Gesualdo, Ligeti and Schnittke performed without pause, the program quickly descends into madness.  Our perception of Gesualdo’s music may be colored by knowing that upon catching his wife and her lover in bed, he murdered them both. Ligeti’s viola sonata, a plaintive lament, feels at once deeply familiar and profoundly unsettling. In his fierce Quartet, Schnittke borrowed from Renaissance and early Baroque music before turning it all upside down in a chaotic and powerful statement of loss and defiance. Crumb’s Nocturnes exist on the edge of the supernatural, with violin and prepared piano creating eerie, beautiful new sounds. The program ends with one of Kenney’s all-time favorites: Schumann’s first piano trio, an epic masterpiece that ties together madness, chaos, magic, and heart-stopping beauty – the essence of Goya’s art.