NSO: Richard Strauss, Schumann, Beethoven

National Symphony Orchestra
Christian Reif conductor
Anastasia Kobekina cello
 
Richard Strauss Metamorphosen
Schumann Cello Concerto 
Beethoven Symphony No. 6, Pastoral

Brimming over with vibrant images and scents of the countryside, Beethoven’s joyful Pastoral Symphony is a glorious depiction of the natural world.

Schumann’s Cello Concerto, with the ‘unrivalled’ (Le Figaro) Anastasia Kobekina as soloist, finds cello and orchestra as equals in the most personal and enigmatic of statements.

A lyrical lament for the war-time bombing of Dresden, the 23 strings of Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen borrow a motif from the funeral march of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Late-Romanticism at its most personal and affecting.

Did you know?

A response to the Allied bombing of Munich that razed the city’s Hoftheater to the ground, Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen was his most explicit response to the Second World War.

Schumann composed his only Cello Concerto in just two weeks. It was never performed in his lifetime.

A devout lover of nature, Beethoven described his Pastoral Symphony as ‘more the expression of feeling than painting’.

Listen out for…

The opening notes of the funeral march from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony in the final bars of Metamorphosen.

The interplay between dominant cello and subservient orchestra in Schumann’s concerto, and how the pairing of solo cello and an orchestral cello in the second movement that enriches the music’s texture.

The steady tread of long bass notes in the Pastoral’s first movement that may be inveterate walker Beethoven on a trek into the countryside. 

The birdsong at the end of the second movement: a nightingale (flute), quail (oboe) and cuckoo (clarinet).

The wind and brass accents of three rustic dances in the third, and the fearsome thunderstorm in the fourth, stirred by low strings and breaking in piccolos and timpani.

The repeated eight-bar theme in the finale as shepherds give thanks for the passing of the storm.

Presented by NCH