The Schumann-Tchaikovsky Festival in Hanover is in full swing and it shall take place from February 21st until March 1st in the Grand Studio of the Radio Broadcasting Station in this Northern German city. The concerts are part of the current season of the Hanover Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, which is conducted by Stanislav Kochanovsky, and they're built on an imaginary dialogue between the German Robert Schumann and the Russian Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, two great composers of the 19th century, or the age of Romanticism.

On the evening of Tuesday, February 24th, the programme will be presented by the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of Hanover and led by the baton of its chief conductor, Stanislav Kochanovsky, and it will be centred around the Byronic hero Manfred, the archetypal loner who ends up tortured by his own conscience.

Robert Schumann felt so moved by this character that he created the music for the dramatic poem "Manfred" written by George Gordon Byron - known as Lord Byron -, who is a central personality of English Romantic poetry. The most famous part of this piece remains the Overture Op. 115 in B minor, which transfigured Manfred's rebellion against destiny into music.

It will be followed by another masterpiece by Robert Schumann, namely Concerto Op. 129 in A minor for cello and orchestra and will be performed by the Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk, whom The Guardian describes as "a poet of the cello, an artist who not only plays his instrument, but seems to breathe through it".

Indeed, Truls Mørk owns a Domenico Montagnana cello of inestimable value, which got made in 1723 in Venice, and which it's renowned for its profoundly rich, low registrar with "sound akin to the earth and chocolate".

The third work for February 24th programme will be the "Manfred" Symphony Op. 58, which holds a unique place in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's oeuvre. While it is not part of the composer's series of six symphonies due being composed between the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies in 1855, the piece also got based of Lord Byron's poem "Manfred", and bears a deeply programmatic nature that is spread across in four acts.

While Schumann captures the psychological frailty of the Byronic hero in a grand overture, Tchaikovsky projects Manfred's drama on a monumental scale, transposing Manfred's delusions into a vast orchestral fresco with an almost cinematic magnitude.

On Friday, February 27th, the North German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra based in Hanover and conducted by the chief conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky will present two concert pieces for piano signed by Robert Schumann, with French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard as the soloist. The audience will be able to hear Schumann's interpretation of Introduction and Allegro from Concerto Op. 134 in D minor, followed by Concerto Op. 54 in A minor for the piano and orchestra.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard has been described in publications such as The Guardian, The New York Times, and Gramophone as "a piano intellectual, who manages to create visionary bridges between different musical eras". Now, he will explore two complementary aspects of the same composer.

The Concerto Allegro Op. 134 has been described as Robert Schumann's musical last will due to being completed in 1853, shortly before the musician's final mental decline, and it encompasses the entirety of a concert and its drama within a single work, something that was new at the time and which Schumann started exploring towards the end of his life in order to achieve absolute unity.

The Concerto in A minor for piano and orchestra, Op. 54, which was finished eight years earlier (1845), "is not a showpiece, but a love letter and a personal diary" as per the American musicologist Charles Rosen, who is an expert in Schumann's life and work. He also points out that "the piece cements the dialogue between the two sides of Schumann's personality, the impetuous enthusiasm of Florestan, and Eusebius's introspective lyricism". Florestan and Eusebius are two alter egos created by Robert Schumann himself for Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, his magazine. Schumann used these alter egos to express the duality of his own artistic nature.

On the evening of Friday, February 27th, the Schumann-Tchaikovsky Festival in Hanover will be concluded by the Symphony No. 1, Op. 13 "Winter Dreams" by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece is meant to encompass the vastness and loneliness of the snow-covered Russian steppes and the lake regions that Tchaikovsky had crossed during his travels between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The entire festival will be conducted by Stanislav Kochanovsky, who is the current chief conductor of the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Hanover. He took over the orchestra at the beginning of the 2024/2025 season, thus becoming Andrew Manze's successor. The orchestra has undergone a period of refinement, focused specifically on the exploration the depths of the romantic and modern music while under Kochanovsky's leadership.

Therefore, we would like to cordially invite you to two romantic evenings at Radio România Muzical, which we hope that you will explore with absolute delight!

Photo credit: Evelyn Dragan