Symphony Saturday

This post got swallowed by The Move That Ate Tokyo, but now that routine is at long last shaping up at Casa Jaquandor 2.0, it's time to get back to this. We'll continue with the symphonies of Robert Schumann, this time with his Symphony No. 3. Numbering musical works by composers is often a messy affair. This one is numbered '3' of his four symphonies, but it is the last symphony that he wrote. Why 3 and not 4, then? Because 4 was published before 3. Is that counterintuitive? It is to me, but I'm not a musiciologist, so what do I know?

This five-movement symphony bears some structural resemblance to Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, the "Pastoral", and like in the second, Schumann combines classical German form and orchestration with his own sense of Romantic lyricism. This symphony has a lot of energy, and even in the slow movements one can sense the forward momentum of the work. Lovers of film music may find a bit of the main melody of the first movement awfully familiar sounding, as there is a section of the main theme from James Horner's Willow score that sounds eerily similar. The reason for this is an old topic of debate among film music fans.

Anyway, here is Schumann's Third Symphony, the "Rhenish".


Next week: Felix Mendelssohn!