Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Riccardo Minasi

There has been much speculation about Johannes Brahms' connection to Robert Schumann’s wife, Clara. One thing is certain: in 1853, on the recommendation of his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim, the young composer spent a month with the Schumanns in Düsseldorf. Robert was enthusiastic about Brahms’s compositions, while Brahms, in turn, admired his elder colleague and stood by Clara as Robert’s mood continued to darken. Their correspondence reveals a close and complicated friendship.

This programme, however, brings the two men together: Following Brahms’ “Academic”, Spanish cello soloist Pablo Ferrandez performs Schumann’s “Concertstück for Cello with Orchestral Accompaniment” from 1850, which the composer himself described as “quite cheerful” and which delighted Clara. The programme concludes with his Symphony No. 2. While he was writing it in the winter of 1845–46, he was already plagued by depression. He found peace in composing; it became for him a “resistance of the spirit through which I sought to combat my condition.” His friend Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy conducted the premiere at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig.