Schumann: Symphony No. 1, Spring | Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhausorch...

A star-studded spring symphony: Robert Schumann’s first symphony, performed by the Gewandhausorchester under the baton of Andris Nelsons. The concert took place in 2019 at the Gewandhaus Leipzig. (00:00) I. Andante maestoso - Allegro molto vivace (12:39) II. Larghetto (19:31) III. Scherzo. Molto vivace (25:11) IV. Allegro animato e grazioso Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856) said of his first symphony that it was "born in a fiery hour." He came up with it over just four days in January of 1841, completing it in the following three weeks. The premiere took place on March 31 of that same year, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig. The Spring Symphony title came from Schumann himself, who had originally even given the individual symphonic movements figurative titles: The Beginning of Spring, Evening, Merry Playmates, and Spring in Full Bloom. Shortly before going to press, however, Schumann redacted the movement titles to prevent the symphony from being classified as program music. The collective title ‘Spring Symphony’ alone was retained. It was, after all, a poem on spring by Adolf Böttger that had inspired the composer to write his symphony on that theme in the first place. Musically, Schumann picked up from Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C major – the ‘Great' – the score of which Schumann had seen during an 1839 trip to Vienna. It is above all the solemn call of the horns and trumpets at the beginning of the Spring Symphony that recalls Schubert's Great Symphony. Beethoven's influence, conversely, can be seen in the recurring themes that link the individual movements together. While Beethoven conceives a thematic idea and develops it purposefully throughout the subsequent movements, however, the movements of Schumann’s Spring Symphony are rather playfully interwoven.