Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy / Robert Schumann Carolin Widmann & Chamber Orchestra of Europe

• Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
• 1I. Allegro molto appassionato12:45
• 2II. Andante - Allegretto non troppo08:16
• 3III. Allegro molto vivace06:09
• Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Violin Concerto in D Minor, WoO 23
• 4I. In kräftigem, nicht zu schnellem Tempo15:37
• 5II. Langsam06:08
• 6III. Lebhaft, doch nicht schnell10:31
• Total Runtime59:26

Info for Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy / Robert Schumann

It was not until late in life that Robert Schumann found the path to the violin. A pianist by profession, it almost seems as if his belated interest in the violin had a lasting effect on the performance and reception of his own works for that instrument. His Fantasy for violin and orchestra, op. 131, has never truly found a place in the repertoire; performances of his violin sonatas are relatively rare; and the Violin Concerto had to wait until 1937 for its première, when it was played in a bowdlerized version by Georg Kulenkampff and the Berlin Philharmonic under Karl Böhm. The latter work probably suffered as well from the unjustified verdict of the great Joseph Joachim, who called it 'weak' and spurned it to the end of his days.

As so often in music history, the vitality of a work can only be proved by committed performers. One such performer was Yehudi Menuhin, the first to forcibly elevate the Schumann concerto into the classical-romantic pantheon: 'This concerto is the historically missing link of the violin literature; it is the bridge between the Beethoven and the Brahms concertos, though leaning more towards Brahms'. Mendelssohn's E-minor Violin Concerto did not face the same problems of genesis and reception as Schumann's. On the contrary: it is one of the most frequently performed of all the great classical-romantic concertos, not least because it refuses to consign the orchestra to a bystander role, as in the virtuoso concerto. Instead, it follows Beethoven's example by achieving a balanced dramatic structure between the soloist and an orchestra with symphonic functions rather than an accompaniment role.

If we pay heed to Menuhin's shrewd assessment and their dates of origin, the combination of Mendelssohn's concerto with Schumann's seems much more convincing than the more popular combination of Mendelssohn's and the Bruch G-minor. This explains why the Munich violinist Carolin Widmann has now chosen the Mendelssohn and Schumann concertos for her new recording with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for ECM's New Series. Since 2008 her commitment to ECM has led to a number of remarkable CD releases, including a highly acclaimed recording of the Schumann violin sonatas with the pianist Dénes Várjon and a multiple prize-winning Schubert recording with Alexander Lonquich.

But a commitment to classical-romantic music is only one facet in the musical cosmos of this versatile artist, who numbers not only Schumann but Morton Feldman among her 'favourite composers'. She is equally au fait with period performance practice and avant- garde techniques and has presented convincing readings of highly-complex works by Berio and Boulez, Feldman's Violin and Orchestra (released on ECM) and Erkki-Sven Tüür, including his Noesie – Concerto for Clarinet, Violin and Orchestra with her brother Jörg Widmann on clarinet and the Nordic Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anu Tali (likewise on ECM).

Boulez, incidentally, gave an interesting answer to the question of whether one should play the music of György Ligeti to gain a better grasp of the music of the past. Boulez said that one would at least gain a better performance culture. Anyone who masters Ligeti's sonic balance and Stockhausen's rhythms will, he felt, be better equipped to play the classical- romantic repertoire. Carolin Widmann's performances stand as proof of his theory.

Carolin Widmann, violin
Chamber Orchestra of Europe

Carolin Widmann
born in Munich in 1976, studied with Igor Ozim in Cologne, Michèle Auclair in Boston and David Takeno in London. She made her ECM debut in 2008 with a Gramophone Award-nominated recording of the Schumann violin sonatas, accompanied by Dénes Várjon. She followed this with Phantasy of Spring, a recital of music by Feldman, Zimmermann, Schoenberg and Xenakis, which was also widely praised for its idiomatic understanding of demanding material, and contributed to Erkki-Sven Tüür’s Strata album, which included the premiere recording of the Estonian composer’s Noësis for violin, clarinet and orchestra.

In 2012 came an insightful Schubert recording, the first documentation of the musical alliance between Carolin Widmann and Alexander Lonquich, which had been gathering momentum since they first played Messiaen together in Salzburg in 2008. ECM released her 2009 recording of Morton Feldman’s Violin and Orchestra in 2013, a work scored for huge orchestra which nonetheless relies on the subtlest gestures to make its impact.

Widmann’s collaboration with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe led to the recording of the violin concertos of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Robert Schumann, once again drawing many very favourable press notices.

Widmann has performed as a soloist with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France (Paris), the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia (Rome), the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, RSO Vienna, the BBC Symphony Orchestra London, London Philharmonic Orchestra and the China Philharmonic in Beijing, and worked with conductors including Riccardo Chailly, Sir Roger Norrington, Silvain Cambreling, Vladimir Jurowski, Emanuel Krivine, Peter Eötvös and Heinz Holliger. ...

Booklet for Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy / Robert Schumann