orchestra21

In 1851 Robert Schumann completed an extensive revision of his D minor symphony for performance and publication. Despite the composer’s own well-considered adjustments his first version of Op 120 from ten years earlier was preferred by Johannes Brahms, who subsequently published it over Clara Schumann’s objections. Conductors and composers, finding justification in these early aesthetic disagreements surrounding the symphony’s orchestration, have since made it common practice to re-revise Schumann’s own final version of the piece – most notably Gustav Mahler, whose retouching of a famous passage from the symphony for his own performances is above.

Tonight at the WCFSO we’ll leave the revisions and recompositions to Timo Andres and instead try to communicate the soundscape that Schumann himself intended for his Fourth Symphony.