Mendelssohn and Schumann:
- Music conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
This recording presents the first in a series of CD’s, exploring the complete symphonies of Felix Mendelssohn under the baton of Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Also featured on this release is pianist, Maria João Pires, in the piano concerto by Robert Schumann.
The tracks on this recording are:
Mendelssohn:
- Symphony No. 3, Op.56, ‘Scottish’
- Hebrides Overture, Op. 26
Robert Schumann:
Performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducting, and Maria Joao Pires, piano soloist.
Inspired by his travels to the British Isles and full of the influence of the Scottish landscape, both Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 ‘Scottish’ and his Hebrides Overture were composed following these travels.
What is less well known is that Mendelssohn was an outstanding landscape painter. He painted many scenes of his travels, and mostly in watercolor. (See photo, top left).
Sir John Eliot Gardiner writes of this coupling of music by two German composers:
“Even if they spoke with different accents, these genial Romantics were united in their ambitious fervor for ‘abstract’ music to be acknowledged as having the same expressive force as poetry, drama or the literary novel….”
Here is the Mendelssohn: Symphony no. 3 in A minor, op. 56, with John Eliot Gardiner conducting the London Symphony Orchestra:
And next, here is the Schumann Piano concerto in A minor, op. 54, with Maria João Pires, piano, and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Eliot Gardiner:
Just for fun, here is another interpretation of the same Schumann Piano Concerto:
Tags: Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, London Symphony, watercolor painter, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 ‘Scottish’