Subscription Concerts 2023-2024Program B
No. 2009 Subscription (Program B)

The German composer Robert Schumann (1810–1856) played a leading role in musical Romanticism. Although opting to be a musician, he took after his bookseller-author father in literary aptitude. Not surprisingly, Schumann’s compositions owe a great deal to literature, the fine examples being Papillons and Kreisleriana for piano respectively inspired by Romantic writers Jean Paul and E. T. A. Hoffmann, not forgetting Szenen aus Goethes Faust (Scenes from Goethe’s Faust) for voices and orchestra. The composer wielded a powerful pen as an influential music critic as well.
Unexpectedly, Genoveva is the sole opera Schumann completed while thinking in vain about over forty literary subjects for his operatic projects. Written in 1847–1848, Genoveva is a product of his Dresden years. (Incidentally, Wagner served as the conductor of the city’s court opera from 1843 to 1849.)
The story, set in the 8th century, features the knight Siegfried (Count of Brabant) and his faithful wife Genoveva. He goes on a crusade leaving her in their palace under the protection of his steward Golo. Genoveva spurns advances of Golo who, now thirsty for revenge, informs Siegfried of Genoveva’s framed-up affair with a servant. After ordering her execution, Siegfried discovers Golo’s intrigue and is reunited with Genoveva who narrowly escaped death. Introducing some of the leitmotifs (recurrent melodies associated with a certain character, emotion, etc.) used in the ensuing opera, the overture in sonata form has the ominous preamble with the violins’ grievous descending melody. The C-major vigorous conclusion foretells the positive outcome of the tragedy.

[Kumiko Nishi]

A core of the sparse but popular repertories for solo cello and orchestra alongside Haydn’s and Dvořák’s, Robert Schumann (1810–1856)’s Cello Concerto has been praised for its natural, masterly treatment of the solo instrument. It is partly because he was knowledgeable about this instrument as he took cello lessons in his childhood.
Schumann finished the draft of the Cello Concerto in 1850, soon after settling in Düsseldorf as the welcome new municipal music director. This bright moment brought a mental stability for a little while to him who chronically suffered severe — sometimes life- threatening — depression throughout his adult life.
Originally entitled Konzertstück (concert-piece) by the composer himself, the work indeed makes itself conspicuous among the standard 19th-century solo concertos focusing on contrast and even confrontation between solo and orchestra parts. Here the soloist, never technically ostentatious, teams up with the orchestra, the most symbolical example being a duet between the solo cellist and the orchestra’s principal cellist in the slow mellifluous middle movement. Moreover, all the three movements are performed seamlessly without pause, being linked by the recurrent three-chord motif (resounding E–A–C melody) introduced at the outset of the work. Other unconventional features as solo concerto are the first movement’s moderate tempo, its lack of extended orchestral introduction and its absence of cadenza (virtuosic passages performed by soloist usually without orchestra): instead, the lively final movement has a cadenza (yet accompanied) heard immediately before the uplifted A-major ending.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Every composition of Robert Schumann (1810–1856) is certainly a landmark achievement in music history. Also, his foresighted devotion as an active critic introduced Chopin, Brahms and other young geniuses straightaway to his contemporaries. Another service we owe to Schumann is that he saved Schubert (1797–1828)’s monumental symphony (The Great D.944) from oblivion and arranged for its first public performance (1839) in Leipzig under Mendelssohn’s baton. This historic event and Schumann’s insightful article about the work led to proper evaluations of the Viennese master.
Schumann attended in December 1845 in Dresden, then his base, a performance of The Great. This is thought to be a source of the irresistible creative impulse for him to set to work on a new composition. Completed thus in 1846, Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C major — the same home key as The Great — was premiered the same year in Leipzig under Mendelssohn’s baton as with, again, The Great. (Shortly after, the first and last movements were revised.)
At an early stage of composition, Schumann, who just recovered from a serious nervous breakdown, tells Mendelssohn in a letter that trumpets have been blasting in his head. In truth, the slow opening brass fanfare of the Symphony No. 2 lets “trumpets” persistently resound a dotted motto (a brief motif including an ascending fifth interval: C–G). The lively main sonata section of the first movement immediately recalls this motto, as it is embedded in the principal “galloping” theme with dotted and double-dotted rhythms. The second movement, a wild scherzo unconventionally in duple time, has trumpets and horns grandly blow the motto at the end. The next slow movement in C minor, frequently pointed out to be inspired by J. S. Bach and his contrapuntal style, is the only movement untouched by the motto which recurs repeatedly throughout the symphony. The final movement, a freely treated sonata with an exceptionally extended coda, has a hymn-like climax making the motto return, before timpani powerfully leads the orchestra to the symphony’s jubilant finish.

[Kumiko Nishi]