Mozart and Schumann

Featured as part of the Classic Series

Friday February 6, 2009 8:00PM
Saturday February 7, 2009 8:00PM

The Toledo Museum of Art Peristyle
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Stefan Sanderling, conductor

Cornelia Herrmann, Piano

Description:

"To compose music, all you have to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of."
-Robert Schumann

Popularly known as the Jeunehomme Concerto, Mozart’s Ninth Piano Concerto has been singled out as the “first unequivocal masterpiece of the Classical era” by musicologist Charles Rosen. Though indeed written when Mozart was a ‘young man (jeune homme, translated into English)’ of twenty-one, the sobriquet is supposed to be the last name of the pianist to whom Mozart dedicated the work. Recently, musicologist Michael Lorenz has argued that the dedicatee was a young woman named Victoire Jenamy. The piece is noteworthy from its dramatic treatment of the piano soloist, almost in the mode of an opera singer. The second movement is especially powerful, with effective use of dissonance to convey a sense of emotional anxiety and heartbreak.

Robert Schumann’s struggles with anxiety and depression had reached their peak in 1845. Within that context, the high spirits that govern much of his Second Symphony are all the more remarkable, including a finale that draws inspiration from Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

Points of interest:

· Robert Schumann had a gift for pithy quotations, including this one: “If we were all determined to play first violin, we should never have an ensemble.” Keep this quote in mind as you watch the first violins attack the demoniacally difficult Scherzo from the Second Symphony.

· The young German pianist Cornelia Herrmann makes her American orchestral debut with these performances. She last worked with Stefan Sanderling in Japan, performing Mozart’s Concerto K. 467 with the NHK Symphony.

· Memorial concert in honor of Caroline Jobst Reimann

Program:

Mozart Overture to the Marriage of Figaro 4'

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major
"Jeunehomme" 32'

INTERMISSION

Schumann Symphony No. 2 in C Major 39'

*TSO Premiere

WGTE - FM 91 broadcasts the Toledo Symphony on FM 91 In Concert. Tonight's concert will be broadcast Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. through the generosity of the Edward H. Schmidt Musical Arts Fund.