Mozart. Schumann

PERFORMERS:
The Mariinsky Orchestra
Conductor: John Axelrod

PROGRAMME:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No 40 in G Minor, K. 550

Robert Schumann
Symphony No 4 in D Minor, Op. 120

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart created his final three symphonies in the summer of 1788. It is noteworthy that he wrote them with no external commission, and it is not known if Mozart even managed to hear his works performed, works that are today acclaimed “hits”. The opening of the first movement of Symphony No 40 in G Minor, well known through all possibly popular music interpretations and mobile phone ring tones, has long become one of Mozart’s well established and easily recognisable calling cards. Like other instrumental works he wrote, Symphony No 40 is closely associated with theatre aesthetics. The themes of the symphony are like a love for characters that have been sketched out, living, loving and suffering, and each of the four movements is like an act in an operatic production. The themes of Fate, like the inherently evil image of the Stone Guest, are touched upon in each movement, introducing a note of confusion and anxiety. The one and a half hour long symphony reflects all human life, with its highs and lows, wisdom gained and naivety, strength of spirit and weakness, faith and doubt.

Symphony No 4 appeared in 1841, when Robert Schumann discovered the symphony genre and, one after another without interruption, had written three opuses. These were the First Symphony, Overture, Scherzo and Finale and Symphonic Fantasy, which later emerged as the Fourth Symphony. Its four movements are performed without interruption and are related by a common theme. The symphony was first performed in Leipzig on 12 June 1841. Ten years later Schumann rewrote the transition from the slow introduction to the first movement and he reworked the orchestration of the finale.
The Fourth Symphony is laconic, in terms of its proportions close to the symphonies of Mendelssohn, though Schumann invested a great deal of ideas and inspiration in it. It was not by chance that in its day it served as the impetus for the appearance of the first works by two symphony music composers. Brahms had a very fine opinion of it indeed and, when working on the introduction to his First Symphony, he set out from Schumann’s introduction. Borodin borrowed the principal theme from Schumann’s finale for the finale of his own First Symphony. If Schumann had been alive he might well have been proud of how subsequent generations were making use of his musical legacy.
Anna Bulycheva