Gardiner conducts the LSO: Mendelssohn and Schumann

Join  Sir John Eliot Gardiner  – one of the country’s most distinguished conductors – and the evergreen London Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Mendelssohn and Schumann’s large-scale works. French cello prodigy Gautier Capuçon, who has played with ensembles around the world, makes his LSO debut as soloist.

Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann are two of the greatest Romantic composers, following in the wake of Beethoven and Schubert. While Mendelssohn was a child prodigy who arrived with a fully developed aesthetic, faithful to the forms of his predecessors, Schumann emerged in a flurry of innovation. Between them, they composed some of the most exquisite and passionate music of the nineteenth century.

A pair of Goethe poems inspired Mendelssohn’s short Overture: Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (1828). Do not be fooled by the modern connotations of ‘calm’: before engines, a windless sea could be catastrophic for seafarers. The piece thus begins pensive, with undercurrents of unease and alarm, before the emergence of breeze swells it into excitement. The serene ending, after a joyous fanfare signalling entry into port, sounds like a sigh of relief. 

Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5 (1830) was written for the tercentennial anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, a major step in the Protestant Reformation. Spritely yet majestic, the stately last movement quotes one of Martin Luther’s most rousing chorales. Despite its numbering, it was actually the composer’s second symphony, but after he missed the deadline for the celebration it remained unpublished for twenty-one years after his death.

Schumann’s Cello Concerto (1850) was also premiered after its composer’s tragic end. Written in a burst of energy after the composer’s move to musically progressive Leipzig, it is one of his most experimental, rhythmically inventive pieces. The solemn clarinet chords of the opening, buffered by ever-transforming plucked strings, lead into a poignantly lyrical cello melody. Until a spate of recent recordings, it remained relatively ignored among his great late works. It is the first truly great Cello Concerto since Boccherini’s 9th, almost a century earlier, and a fitting showcase for Capuçon’s graceful poise.