Spectacle vs. content: Alexander Gavrylyuk plays Schumann

Pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk, a regular guest at the NTR Saturday Matinee, plays Schumann's little 'piano eternal' Piano Concerto. And did you already know Schubert's Seventh?

Schumann asks for cooperation

"A piano concerto without a piano," was Liszt's opinion. Other contemporaries also did not understand why Robert Schumann had not turned his only solo concerto for piano into a virtuoso spectacle. But much more than dexterity, Schumann focuses on the symbiosis of soloist and orchestra, and the solidity of the thematic construction.

Schubert's 'Unfinished' Completed

Twenty years earlier, Schubert, too, had envisaged an orchestral structure of unprecedented proportions in his Seventh Symphony. But the score did not live up to his expectations and the symphony remained unfinished. What remains is a four-part sketch of which only the slow introduction and a fragment of the opening movement have been orchestrated. Based on Schubert's instructions, many composers - including Schubert specialist Brian Newbould - have since given their own interpretation of the score.