Cello Concerto in A Minor

This album offers an intimate insight into Schumann's world through three highly symbolic works. At its centre is the original version of the Fourth Symphony from 1841, a rarely performed score whose transparency and almost chamber music-like clarity are far removed from the heaviness of the later revision, revealing a Schumann of impressive directness. The Cello Concerto and the Fantasy for Violin, the latter here in an idiomatic and expressive transcription for cello, both stem from Schumann's final years in Düsseldorf and share an atmosphere of shifting moods and bright shadows. Throughout the album, Alexander Rudin - both as conductor and solo cellist - together with Musica Viva creates a vivid, deeply human portrait of Schumann's imaginative world and its fragile, radiant beauty.