Kopatchinskaja plays Schumann violin concerto with Christoph Eschenbach and SWR Symphony Orchestra
Kopatchinskaja plays Schumann violin concerto with Christoph Eschenbach and SWR Symphony Orchestra
科帕欽斯卡婭與克里斯托夫·埃申巴赫和西南廣播交響樂團合作演奏舒曼小提琴協奏曲
14,889 views Apr 11, 2025 #Schumann #violinconcerto
Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Violin Concerto (5.3.2021 Liederhalle Stuttgart).
0:00 In a firm but not too fast tempo,
16:08 ghost theme,
18:15 Lento,
24:25 Polonaise.
For years Schumann had talked about a violin concerto with his friend Ferdinand David, but when he wrote it in autumn of 1853 it was proposed by and dedicated to Joseph Joachim. Schumann to Joachim: “Here I show you something new: Behind a certain seriousness there is sometimes a more cheerful mood. While writing you were often present in my mind which contributed to my spirits.”
Joachim, however, felt that the work showed “some signs of exhaustion”, criticising the monotony of the last movement. But then Schumann had suffered already during two years from symptoms of cerebral disease - trouble with hearing and speaking - and some months later he would develop a psychotic episode and having tried to drown himself in the Rhine would finish his last two years in a lunatic asylum.
The first movement (00:00 “In a firm but not too fast tempo”) warns of an immovable fate, relentlessly destructive, inhuman and superhuman. The violin tries to understand, to ask questions, to cope, hesitating or anxiously waiting, losing track.
The theme of the second movement (18:15, "Lento") resembles the theme (16:08) of Schumann's last work before his internment - the Ghost Variations - a lost search without solutions, - maybe a heartbreaking farewell to Clara?
For the final Polonaise (24:25) Schumann fixed a bizarrely slow metronome mark (Lebhaft, doch nicht schnell q=63). We are a bit faster with about 76-78. An even faster tempo is barely possible if one wants to maintain the tempo towards the end of the movement with its extremely fast passages in the solo violin. In the booklet to his recording of the concerto with Gidon Kremer, Nikolaus Harnoncourt makes the following remarks: “Concerning this polonaise, there is a letter of Joachim to Schumann: ‘I would so much like to play the d-minor concerto again for you. I master it now better than in Hannover where my playing in the rehearsal was not worthy of you, to my greatest annoyance… Now the ¾ rhythm sounds much more stately. Do you remember how you laughed and rejoiced when we imagined that the last movement sounded as if Kościuszko and Sobieski opened a polonaise together, so magnificent’.”
To this one has to add: Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746-1817) was the world-famous Polish idealist and hero who led the Polish insurgency against the Russians and later also fought for American independence. And Johann III Sobieski was the Polish king who in 1683 relieved Turkish-beleaguered Vienna thereby averting the downfall of Europe. So, this Polonaise is opened by the two greatest Polish national heroes.
And Harnoncourt continues: “Very few people know how people imagined a Polonaise in these times. I can cite a testimony about the teaching of Chopin – and this concerns exactly the circles wherefrom Schumann got his ideas: ‘I know positively that Chopin recommended to his pupils to count the ¾ bar in six parts, this being in eights’. This means that Chopin wanted the Polonaise in no case faster than in the actual dance: with pride and pomp. This is not easy and corresponds in no way to the conventional idea of the finale of a concert. As finales go everybody expects the grand soloistic gesture, the crowning fireworks, but this is not the case here.”
The following video shows the measured and stiffly formal way of dancing the Polonaise in Poland up to this day: • POLONAISE dance - Polonez Folk Arts Ensemb... &t=20
Now imagine that you do not see young people but the entry of the greatest and proudest war heroes. Then the Polonaise has to be slow and measured, however not limp and lame but proud and tense, and in any case not fast.
Considering Schumann's life situation at the time it is difficult to resist the view that this Polonaise could be anything else than a grotesque “Danse macabre”, fitting for a dance of death or for the pain of a slow farewell.
The violin concerto was kept back by Joachim, Clara Schumann, and Brahms and deposited in the Prussian state library not to be released until 100 years after Schumann's death. However, the Nazis published it 1937 as a replacement for the popular but forbidden Mendelssohn concerto and the first performance was in presence and with a speech of propaganda minister Göbbels by Georg Kulenkampff in a revised version. The unaltered original version was given soon afterward by Yehudi Menuhin in New York.
This concerto can be read as a testimony about the breakdown of a musical genius, or also about how any cruel fate can destroy any despairing soul. And today, might it not also be read as a statement about how global warming will boi
Film Provided by Patricia Kopat