Roberto Abbado

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«A travelling player, entering a gathering of merry people, lets them hear melodies he has collected elsewhere, both serious and light-hearted; following his inventive musician’s genius, he preludes, embroiders and fantasises on these themes, ending with a dance». That is the note placed at the head of the score of Der Schwanendreher, which means literally «the one who turns the swans», perhaps an allegorical reference to the hurdy-gurdy player. First performed in Amsterdam on 14 November 1935, with the composer himself as soloist, this viola concerto displays old folk melodies in an unusual instrumental layout that gives the viola a position of absolute pre-eminence, since there are no first and second violin sections, nor any other violas in the orchestra.

«I wrote the second symphony — these are the composer’s words — when I was still very unwell, and it seems to me one must notice it in listening; it reflects the resistance of the spirit against my physical condition. The first movement is full of this struggle and of its capricious, obstinate character». Schumann’s four symphonies came into being over ten years: the First was written at the beginning of 1841, in a happy period shortly after his marriage to Clara Wieck; the Second took shape between 1845 and 1846 in Dresden, when his psychological instability was beginning to show itself ever more seriously; the Third was composed in 1850, after his move to Düsseldorf to take charge of the city’s orchestra; while the Fourth, written in its original version in 1841 immediately after the First and then set aside because of its poor reception, was revised in 1851, five years before his death.