Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra / Borowicz / Stadfeld / Along the Rhine - NOSPR

The programme of the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert follows the course of the Rhine – from Bonn, Ludwig van Beethoven’s home town, to the landscapes that, half a century later, fired Robert Schumann's imagination. The two works also share a somewhat confusing numbering that makes their proper placement in the respective composers' catalogues less than intuitive.

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15, was in fact the composer’s third attempt at the form, but the first to be published. The earliest sketches for the Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major had been made some eight years earlier, while the youthful concerto in E flat major was not published during Beethoven’s lifetime and has not survived in its entirety. After moving from Bonn to Vienna, Beethoven needed an impressive ‘calling card’ that would solidify his reputation as a virtuoso pianist. In the Piano Concerto in C major, he speaks largely in the musical language of the age of Haydn and Mozart. Yet unexpected harmonic turns repeatedly emerge, revealing the composer's temperament and pointing towards musical Romanticism.

Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 in E flat major was, chronologically, the last symphony he composed. The work listed in the catalogue as the Fourth had in fact been written almost a decade before the Third, but was published last, following extensive revisions. When Robert Schumann arrived in Düsseldorf in 1850 to take up the post of municipal music director, the Rhineland landscape and the warm welcome he received from the city's inhabitants filled him with new energy. He composed the Third Symphony in just five weeks, wishing – as he is said to have put it – for the folk element to predominate.

The ‘Rhenish’, however, is not a musical postcard, but a record of Schumann’s fascination with life in the region: its natural surroundings, dances and monuments/landmarks. Its five movements take us from expansive joy through a melody stylised as a folk ländler to a lyrical intermezzo. The dense trombone sonority of the fourth movement, Feierlich ('Solemn'), is said to have been inspired by the grandeur of the cathedral in nearby Cologne. Here, however, as throughout the work, Schumann ultimately abandoned precise programmatic descriptions, unwilling to impose an interpretation on his listeners. In the finale, the composer returns to the joyful Lebhaft ('Lively').

Schumann’s arrival in Düsseldorf opened up the prospect of happiness and stability. By an irony of fate, however, the waters of the Rhine would become the scene of his profound mental crisis: just over three years after completing the ‘Rhenish’ Symphony, the composer threw himself into the river that had so captivated him. He was rescued, but a few days later was admitted to a sanatorium, which he would never leave.

Szymon Maliszewski

Concert duration (intermission included): approximately 90 minutes

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