Info
Programme:
Bruch's violin concerto No. 1
Schumann's 4th symphony
Conductor: Jesper Ryskin
Concerts:
26th of November at 19:30, Ørestad Bibliotek
28th of November at 16:00, Hellig Kors Kirke
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Notes from the conductor
In the autumn project 2021, KUSO will try its hand at two magnificent German works: Schumann's 4th Symphony and Bruch's Violin Concerto.
Schumann's 4th symphony is a heavy and stately symphony that showcase the style of Schumann well, where majestic music and notes of depression and mental turmoil seem hard to distinguish. The 4th symphony is actually a work earlier than the 3rd, but revised and published after the 3rd.
Schumann is one of the great romantic composers of Germany. Born when Beethoven was 40, and had premiered his sixth symphony, the pastorale - and the year after Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn and Schumann were lifelong friends, and when Mendelssohn created the academy of music in Leipzig, Schumann was part of the very original teacher staff. And when Mendelssohn died just 38 years old, Schumann was one of the pallbearers. It was really a melting pot of talent, and besides Schumann being married to Clara Schumann, who was in her own right a very talented composer, Schumann also became very close friends with Brahms, who was born 23 years after Schumann. Schumann's life was one of relative turmoil. In youth he was a talented piano prodigy, but a hand injury forced him away from that career. Throughout his life Schumann was ridden by what seemed to be mental problems, and both at a young age as well as the last two years of his life, he was at sanatoriums, the last period after trying to kill himself by throwing himself off a bridge. Today, it is believed the problems either came from untreated Syphilis, or mercury poison - mercury was at the time used for different treatments, where we today know that mercury is extremely harmful to the body.
Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26, is one of the most popular violin concertos in the repertoire and, along with the Scottish Fantasy, the composer's most famous work. Although one of the most popular works of the romantic period, Bruch himself was ambivalent with the success of the concerto, as it overshadowed anything else he did, and he to some degree predicted that the work was of such high quality that it would prove to be his legacy in the future.