2018–2019 SERIES: VIRTUOSOS

As the son of a publisher and a well-read, studious fellow himself, the young Robert Schumann was interested in being a writer. When he realized his true passion was music, he instead became the only one of four brothers to quit the family publishing business, building a successful career as a composer, pianist, and music critic. Even so, he never forgot his literary roots, and showed a particular zeal for setting written works to music.

Ave Verum Corpus has been hailed through the years as one of classical music’s great masterworks, a testament to Mozart’s incredible ability to create powerfully emotional works. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the motet is that it reaches this emotional depth over the course of just 46 measures and through incredible simplicity. It was once famously described by Artur Schnabel as “too simple for children and too difficult for adults.”

Gustav Mahler was born at Kalischt near the Moravian border of Bohemia on July 7, 1860, and died in Vienna on May 18, 1911. Mahler originally wrote the first movement of his Symphony No. 2 in 1888 as a “symphonic poem” entitled Todtenfeier (“Funeral Rites”). He wavered for five years about whether to make Todtenfeier the beginning of a symphony, and it was not until the summer of 1893 that he composed the second and third movements. The finale and a revision of the first movement followed in the spring and summer of 1894.

Rachmaninoff’s works have inspired many Hollywood soundtracks, so it is fitting that his Piano Concerto No. 3 has itself played a central film role. Shine, the 1996 movie based on the true story of Australian pianist David Helfgott, depicts the life of a piano prodigy pushed to perfection by his domineering father, and driven to madness by the technical and emotional demands of the “Rach 3.” The film earned praise from critics and audiences alike, and an Oscar for lead actor Geoffrey Rush. It also renewed interest in Rachmaninoff’s technical tour-de-force.