The finale of Schumann's Second Symphony includes a quotation from Ludwig van Beethoven's song cycle An die ferne Geliebte, a theme Schumann had used before in reference to his wife Clara.
Composition History
Maurice Ravel's orchestration of Schumann's Carnaval was commissioned by Vaclav Nijinsky, a star dancer of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets russes, for a planned production.
Performer Biography
Dirk Joeres, the conductor on this album, initially established himself as a pianist, winning the Vercelli International Piano Competition in 1972 before expanding his activities into conducting.
Composition History
Robert Schumann's Carnaval is based on a symbolic motto of notes (A-E-C-B) that references the Bohemian town of Asch, home to his fiancée Ernestine von Fricken, and also alludes to his own name.
Compositional Technique
Schumann's Second Symphony represents an important stage in his engagement with Beethoven's legacy, featuring an original, cyclically interlocked form of 'absolute' symphonic writing.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Theodor W. Adorno, a 20th-century philosopher, believed that all human achievement in life is an attempt to regain some form of childhood, an idea that influenced his philosophical and compositional work.
Composer Biography
Robert Schumann composed his Second Symphony while ill, stating that the music reflected his physical and psychological ailments, and that he only began to feel better in the last movement.
