Romanticism times two

For days on end, her husband hammered chords in D Minor on the piano like a madman, Clara Schumann-Wieck wrote in her diary in the spring of 1841. This hammering was what would lead to a symphony in the same key: Robert Schumann’s last, an undisputed masterpiece which reveals the different aspects of his split personality. The Concertgebouw Orchestra and conductor Fabio Luisi plunge headlong into the Romanticism of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, after having treated us to the generous melodies of Max Bruch’s First Violin Concerto.

‘The Bruch First Concerto is a wonderful piece... You could probably wake me up in the middle of the night and I’d happily play it to you… There are some pieces where you just know you’re going to have a lifelong dance with the music. You return to them again and again, and you learn something more about them each time’, says Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider about one of the most famous concertos in history. Wo do not have to wake him up today: the master violinist travels to Amsterdam to perform this melodic marvel for you with the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the baton of Fabio Luisi.