Petr Popelka makes his debut with Schumann’s “Spring Symphony”
Robert Schumann in the throes of love: newly married to Clara Wieck, the ideas for his First Symphony poured out of him. With its lively optimism, the Spring Symphony reflects this spirit of new beginnings. In contrast to this is Alban Berg’s poignant Violin Concerto, which is a musical memorial to Manon Gropius, who died at a young age. The soloist is Gil Shaham. The concert opens with Antonín Dvořák’s The Wood Dove, which tells of death and guilt. Conductor Petr Popelka makes his debut with the Philharmoniker.
“Becoming and passing” could be the title of this programme, with which Petr Popelka introduces himself to Berlin audiences. In 2019/20, the Czech musician made the leap from principal double bass with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden to the conductor’s desk – with great success: today, he holds a number of positions, including chief conductor of the Wiener Symphoniker.
The concert opens with Antonín Dvořák’s The Wild Dove. The symphonic poem is based on a horror story in which a widow appears to mourn her husband who she herself has poisoned. At his grave, the wild dove’s song reminds her of her guilt. A superb dramatist, Dvořák presents the narrative in vivid images. The melancholy funeral march at the beginning in particular already foreshadows similar elements in the music of Gustav Mahler.
The violin concerto that Alban Berg wanted to write in 1935 on commission from violinist Louis Krasner was to sound “fresh, pious, joyful, free”. Highly motivated, he set to work. But a stroke of fate on 22 April led him to dedicate the piece “to the memory of an angel”: Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma Mahler, who he adored, had died of polio at the age of 19. The first of the two movements traces her blossoming – sometimes dream-like, sometimes playful. In the second movement, a nine-note fortissimo chord marks the catastrophe. Comfortingly, her passing is accompanied by a quotation from Bach’s chorale “Es ist genug” (It is enough). At the end, the solo violin loses itself in “heavenly” heights above a reminiscence of the opening. Given its compelling emotionality, the fact that all this is done using a twelve-tone scale is hardly noticeable.
The second half of the concert is all about becoming: “I wrote the symphony in that springtime urge which carries people away into old age and overtakes them anew every year,” said Robert Schumann in 1841. He completed the sketches for his First Symphony in just four days. And the striking fanfare motif at the start sets the tone for the Spring Symphony, as the composer himself christened it: a new beginning! The motif runs through the entire work as a poetic theme.
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Our recommendations
- Elgar’s Violin Concerto with Gil Shaham and David Zinman
- Claudio Abbado conducts music from “Carmen” at the 1997 New Year’s Eve Concert
- 2002 Europakonzert from Palermo with Claudio Abbado and Gil Shaham
- Susanna Mälkki and Gil Shaham
- Zubin Mehta conducts Saint-Saëns’s “Organ Symphony”
- Sakari Oramo conducts Mahler
