1001 nights

Melancholy and fairytale splendour with solo violin

A major attraction of the solo concerto is that the soloist can show off their virtuosity. Yet beyond the showmanship lies an inner world, where the interaction between soloist and ensemble is the very ideal of orchestral chamber music. Robert Schumann’s violin concerto is an excellent example of this. Being unsuitable virtuoso fodder, this work is not as popular as the frontrunners of the repertoire, yet in the intricate interplay between solo violin and orchestra – incredibly intimate and touching in the second movement – it reaches heights of great solitude. As Schumann wrote, it is music that “comes from the heart” in which “everything is inextricably intertwined”. We are led out of the melancholy of this late work by another violin, this time the solo violin in Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade”. Its arabesques run like a magical thread through the “1001 nights”, whose fairytale world is evoked with orchestral splendour, soothing not only the Sultan but also the stormy sea.