The words are intricately related but diverge. Virtuosity: music that glorifies the possibilities of the instrument and the prowess of the performer—that titillates and stuns the audience in the Romantic tradition of Paganini. It’s the violinist tight-rope walking on the strings, performing impossible feats, stretching the capabilities of the instrument, creating pacts with the Devil. […]
The ever-fascinating and intimate triangle – Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms – will be brought to new light with seldom-heard works that highlight the musical cross-references and spiritual bond that united them. Predating accompaniment to silent film by decades, Robert’s melodrama, Schön Hedwig is a forerunner to soap-opera sentimentality with a happy ending. […]
Robert Schumann’s setting of Heinrich Heine’s song cycle, Dichterlibe—A Poet’s Love—is, in a word, spellbinding. The rendering of the age-old theme of love and betrayal is personal and intimate, with barriers between singer and listener removed. It is Romanticism at its most exquisite. Mendelssohn, too, was captivated by Heine’s lyrical genius and wrote music to […]