Robert Schumann wrote his only cello concerto in Düsseldorf during a two week period in October 1850. His wife Clara loved the work, saying ‘The romanticism, the spirit, the freshness, the humour, and then the fascinating interweaving of the cello and orchestra – all this is truly thrilling. What’s more, the harmoniousness and profound feeling which fill all the songful passages!’.
Our soloist for the work, internationally-acclaimed cellist Steven Isserlis, is passionate about Schumann’s work and has often spoken of his love of Schumann’s Cello Concerto, so this will be a very special performance.
” … Steven Isserlis stands near the very top. He’s now taken on the mantle of Britain’s Best-Loved Cellist, partly because he’s so much more than a very fine player … [Schumann’s Cello Concerto] needs a really persuasive advocate to reveal its depths. In Isserlis’s hands, the flickers became a furnace of intense, yearning inwardness.” (The Telegraph)
Le bourgeois gentilhomme started life as the incidental music to Molière’s play and Strauss’s incidental music scores the main protagonists of the story as the tale unfolds. Written with a strong Baroque flavour, the romantic and comic misadventures of M. Jourdain’s desperate attempts at social climbing are humorously depicted in this charming work.