Thursday, September 25, 2025
City Halls, Glasgow
Ryan Wigglesworth”s tribute to Laura Samuel – music that would fit into Britten’s Frank Bridge Variations and reminds of Tippett’s Corelli Fantasia (both also for strings), with Bach motifs threaded through – For Laura, after Bach is heartfelt, with shadows, if dignified, transcending its sad inspiration without losing sight of it.
But for Jelly d’Arányi being guided by the deceased Schumann, she claimed, to find his Violin Concerto, given a one-hundred-year embargo by widow Clara and dedicatee Joachim, maybe this from-the-grave opus would have stayed its century course, or longer, in a Berlin strongroom. It’s an emotionally tempestuous work, with a wonderfully fiery and lyrical spirit (no pun) and a compassionate slow movement that reaches the innermost recesses of human feeling. With splendid support, Daniel Lozakovich gave an impressive account of the idiosyncratic solo part, fully attuned to it, sensitive in the middle movement, and with an ideally spacious tempo for the polonaise Finale. As an encore Lozakovich gave old-fashioned expanse, rich tone, and eloquence to the ‘Sarabande’ from Bach’s D-minor Partita, BWV1004.
As for my desert-island Rachmaninov, Wigglesworth and SSO were totally at-one with the music’s power, passion, nostalgia, modernity, gorgeousness (all exposed in the volatile first movement, repeat observed), agility (the scherzo-like middle section of the second movement), and an articulate Finale, with a driven, as if being chased, coda, the superb orchestration relished. Masterpiece. However, what happened (timings as on BBC Sounds) when, near the end, the music stopped (2:00:25) and started again (2:00:54), with some faint noises and a voice (Wigglesworth?) confirming the broadcast itself was continuing? No word from the eye-witness Radio 3 presenter.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002jj9w
Schumann’s Violin Concerto is one of the great unknown masterpieces by a still largely misunderstood undoubtedly great composer, which may be a challenging thing to say when his piano music, songs, symphonies and piano concerto are stalwarts of the international repertoires. HIs very late Violin Concerto is transfixed by one of the finest and most inspired emotional slow movements of the Romantic era – but the outer movements demand a far greater grasp of their overall expressive originality than received opinion permits.
i know that Boulez was fascinated by the work; it demands a conductor of Mahlerian insight and a soloist of Milstein-like depth to balance the myriad subtle changes of tempos in the outer movements, and the chiaroscuro-like changes of orchestral inner threads are way in advance of much of Schumann’s other orchestral music and symphonic thought. Huge thanks to these artists; let us pray this performance leads to a revelatory recording and wider dissemination of a still-unknown work of inspired genius. For far too long, Schumann’s late period has posed problems that only a later generation can sympathise with and hopefully divine – but it appears these artists have tapped that vein of instinctive understanding. Huge thanks.
I’d like to echo Robert’s views on this neglected concerto. Far too much rubbish is written by some musicologists and critics about Schumann’s supposed inability to orchestrate or indeed write convincingly for any larger ensemble. Henryk Szeryng was a great champion of this work and made at least two recordings of it. What I particularly like is the brisk tempo he chooses for the Finale ( and then the piece really comes alive), unlike the sluggish live performances I have recently heard by celebrated artists who look at the composer’s marking of “Lebhaft, doch nicht schnell” and are more persuaded by the last three words than the first. Incidentally, as those who are familiar with Steven Isserlis’s contributions to social media will be aware, there is no greater champion of all of Schumann’s output.
It has been suggested by a reader that a mobile phone ringing was the reason to stop the performance. Could well be.
And so it proves…
“A mobile phone went off during the performance of Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony. The BBC SSO’s Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth paused and restarted the performance.” BBC Scottish SO