January 2022
To bring our international cycle of Schumann symphonies to a close, the MCO and Artistic Advisor Daniele Gatti focus on the first and last symphonies that the composer wrote, along with two of his other orchestral works, in a tour takes us back to our roots in Ferrara and Reggio Emilia.
Until his first symphony, nicknamed Spring, was written, Schumann was known mostly for piano and vocal works. But as his wife Clara noted, "His compositions are all orchestral in feeling." The next step was obvious, and in hindsight, inevitable; Schumann completed the score in under a month. His third symphony was the last to be completed, if not the last to be published (the fourth dates from nine years prior) and finds Schumann wrestling with the influence of Beethoven, only to emerge with his own, distinct form of romanticism. The symphony's nickname, Rhenish, is in tribute to a recent journey he had made with his wife to the Rhineland.
In programmes that combine these works with the Genoveva overture and the Konzertstück, with its unique concertante grouping of four horns, Daniele Gatti closes this latest chapter of our collaboration. He and the MCO first worked together on a production of Berg's Lulu in 2010, and after becoming Artistic Advisor of the Orchestra in 2016, embarked on a critically-acclaimed, multi-year Beethoven symphony cycle before shifting the focus exclusively to Schumann in 2019.
