Musically, they are the internationally renowned Schoenfeld Duo: Alice on violin and Eleonore on cello.

Child prodigies who began their musical studies in prewar Europe and performed around the globe, they have been on the faculty at USC for several decades.

In conversation, as well, they are the Schoenfeld Duo. As befits sisters who have lived, taught and performed together all their lives, their words and thoughts intertwine. They don’t necessarily finish each other’s sentences – they are much too polite to interrupt – but one picks up neatly when the other pauses.

It is the same with their music. “The rapport between the two is absolute, not exceeded by any other two artists I have ever heard,” a critic once wrote. “The Schoenfeld sisters play with a unity of tone and a virtuosic aggressiveness that almost takes one’s breath away,” High Fidelity magazine gushed. “Not even a pianist can make his two hands play in closer unanimity,” observed the Glasgow Herald.

At 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 27, they will be performing as the Schoenfeld Perry Trio with USC Thornton School of Music keyboard studies professor John Perry in a free concert at Alfred Newman Recital Hall. The program will consist of Beethoven’s Piano Trio Op. 97 "Archduke" and Dvorak’s Piano Trio Op. 90 "Dumky."

Perry, who has performed with the Schoenfelds regularly during his 27 years at USC, calls them “marvelous teachers and colleagues.” They return the compliment, saying how much they appreciate playing with “such a phenomenally talented pianist.”

Both women are elegant and stylish, always beautifully dressed and accessorized. Their mid-century home in La Canada is a graceful reflection of their cultured style. They have held recitals in their airy living room, and it is where they practice together in the evenings. “You have to be ahead of your students,” Alice said.

Multilingual in English, French, Russian and German, when the sisters talk to each other at home, it is in German. “Our sense of humor is much better in German,” Eleonore explained.

“The conversation certainly goes faster,” Alice added.

The sisters are on campus four days a week and often return on weekends if a former student needs guidance before a crucial audition or performance. They have as many as 20 students each – all of whom receive individual lessons.

“We have such fantastic students from all over the world. We cannot refuse students, because they are of such high caliber,” Alice said.

“The problem is, we love it,” said Eleonore, who is chair of the strings department and has been director of the Gregor Piatigorsky Seminar for Cellists in Los Angeles since 1979. “Everything we do comes from great desire and great commitment. It’s desire and commitment that makes musicians get up early, practice and set goals. We do the same because we have to set examples. We cannot concertize as frequently during the year – students do tie us down – but we go to festivals in the summer.”

The two have played under famous batons for major philharmonic and radio orchestras in Europe, America and elsewhere, and have long recording careers as soloists and as a duo. In demand for master classes and as jurors for chamber music competitions, they have crisscrossed the globe many times. Their students have followed their paths, playing with the New York Philharmonic, Concertgebow Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony and others.

The Schoenfelds were born in Yugoslavia to a Russian mother and Polish father. Their father, an orchestra concertmaster, gave up his position to move the family to Berlin so Alice, who started giving violin concerts at the age of five, could continue her musical training. At age 10, Alice was performing with the Berlin Philharmonic and was later playing 150 concerts a year.

Eleonore, who is younger by four years, began as a ballet dancer with the Berlin State Opera at age six. “It was a musical shrine,” she recalled. “The discipline was incredible.”

Life was hard for the family in prewar Berlin. “We came to Germany at the wrong time,” Alice said. “There was no wealth in our life there, but our wealth was culture,” Eleonore added. “Berlin had five opera houses, and I walked past five museums on the way to the Berlin State Opera.”

Alice studied under Karl Klingler, part of the Klingler Quartet, which was the best in Europe at the time. “It is a tragedy that he is not better known,” Eleonore said. Joseph Goebbels [Hitler’s minister of propaganda] told him to replace his cellist, who was Jewish. Klinger refused, instead ending his musical career and going to live in his summer retreat, a castle.

At this castle, “there was a circle of culture that was unbelievable,” Eleonore said. There, the young sisters performed with physicist Max Planck, who played the piano, and then explained his theory of quantum physics for the starstruck girls.

Although their careers were flourishing, their parents were wary of the Russian dictatorship, and the family left Europe in 1952, immigrating to Los Angeles. A connection with Idyllwild Arts Academy led the then-USC dean of music to ask them to join the faculty.

They have outlived several deans and are delighted to be performing at USC again after a one-year absence due to a broken finger (Eleonore) and hip problem (Alice). They’ve had a lifetime of far-flung concerts and try to convey the attractions of the musicians’ life to their students.

“Performing and traveling,” Alice said. “That’s where students learn the joy in music making and the joy in communicating with the audience.”