Elim Chan
Igor Levit Robert Schumann
Noriko Koide

«... I have already told you that I can not write a concerto for virtuosos and must think of something else,» wrote Robert Schumann (1810-1856) to his fiancé Clara Wieck in 1939. He had already begun working on four different piano concertos without being able to finish them.

But Clara—who became Clara Schumann the year after and was one of Europe's best pianists—kept encouraging her husband to write for piano and orchestra. After a few years of new attempts in smaller formats, Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor saw the light of day in 1845.

Schumann's Piano Concerto has since become his most famous work and the most played piano concerto from the Romantic period. As a 15-year-old, Edvard Grieg experienced hearing Clara Schumann as the soloist in the piece, and it became the model for his own piano concerto a few years later.

The concert opens with the overture Le Corsaire (in english, The Pirate) from 1844 by Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) He considered naming the exuberant piece “The Red Pirate” after J.F. Cooper's novel. The Pirate by Lord Byron was also one of Berlioz’ favorite stories.

Swaddling Silk & Gossamer Rain

“Western music language and gamelan music language often have the exact opposite direction, and I'm finally starting to feel like Mac and Windows are installed together,” says the Japanese composer Noriko Koide (b. 1982) about the process of combining Javanese gamelan and Western music.

Her low-key, poetic orchestral work Swaddling Silk & Gossamer Rain premiered in 2022. Gossamer describes a thin spider web with dew or something equally thin and light. The ten-minute-long orchestral piece is characterized by light and silky smooth instruments.

«... a great choreographic symphony … a huge musical fresco, less conscientious about archaeological matters than it is faithful to the Greece of my dreams,» wrote Maurice Ravel (1975-1937) about Daphnis and Chloé, premiered as a ballet in 1912.

The love story of the ballet builds on a Greek shepherd novel from the 100’s. Ravel compiled the orchestral music into two suites, and Suite No. 2 showcases the orchestra in all its glory - from the magical opening “Sunrise” to the ecstatic dance that ends the suite.