Mariangela Vacatello

Two renowned compositions transport us into the extraordinary ambiance of German Romantic music, bearing witness to a relationship, that between Schumann and Mendelssohn, which was also of close friendship. “Something between a symphony, a concerto, and a grand sonata,” Schumann wrote in 1839 of his Concerto op. 54 to his wife Clara, who was its first performer in 1846 in Leipzig, under Mendelssohn’s direction. On the other hand, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 traces back to 1833, a unique “souvenir of Italy,” born out of the reminiscences of the Grand Tour which, between 1830 and 1831, had taken a young Mendelssohn to our major cities of art.