Schumann's Violin Concerto has had a rocky ride into the repertoire. The concerto was one of Schumann's last orchestral pieces, and was written in 1853 during the onset of the mental illness that would kill him in 1856. The solo part was written for the 22-year-old Joseph Joachim, who was initially dissatisfied with it. At the suggestion of Schumann's widow Clara, Joachim revised the final movement, but never performed the work in public.
Such was Clara's embarrassment over Schumann's mercurial concerto that she did not print the piece in her complete edition of Schumann's music. Only in 1937, after Schumann's daughter had granted her consent, did the concerto finally reach the concert stage.
At the Festival Hall, violinist Gidon Kremer was a compellingly persuasive advocate for Schumann's concerto, accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra and Christian Thielemann. If the piece is problematic, it is not because of Schumann's supposedly diminishing musical powers. Rather, the sometimes bizarre structure of the work's three movements reflects the contradictions at the heart of Schumann's aesthetic.
The first movement reverses the priorities of the typical romantic concerto. Although there is a conventional contrast between a martial first theme and a lyrical second idea, Schumann's development section is anything but traditional. Instead of a tempestuous, dramatic passage, he composes music of uneasy, meditative reflection. Kremer's performance seemed to suspend the movement's momentum, and this section was the dark heart of the whole concerto.
The dominance of lyricism in the concerto is most completely expressed in the second movement. Kremer played the endless melody with mesmerising concentration. Even in the finale, Schumann eschews a virtuosic showpiece. Orchestra and soloists are united in an ebullient, triple-time dance, and Kremer and Thielemann created a dynamic partnership.
Either side of the complex concerto were bleeding chunks from two of the most supremely confident operas of German romanticism: the overture from Wagner's Die Meistersinger, and Richard Strauss's Suite from Der Rosenkavalier. In the Wagner, Thielemann allowed the Philharmonia to flourish only in the central love-music, but he was much more generous in a sumptuous performance of Strauss's Rosenkavalier suite. Thielemann and the Philharmonia were as vivid in Strauss' nostalgic waltzes as they were in the voluptuous music from the famous act three trio.
