The Poetry in Life – Schumann, Adès, Brahms 18-19 May 2018

Robert Schumann, the great stand-alone German Romantic.

Born to a literary father and who spent his childhood reading, writing, and compiling poems in dad’s bookstore; becoming a musician
happened later in life for Schumann than other known musical prodigies.

But where he left his mark, was where no one else could.

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Second to none in the realm of song literature, it was here where Schumann was able to synthesise his innermost sensibilities
with his strong literary orientation and a fully blossoming musical expression.

Schumann wrote copiously throughout his life. Obsessively filling diaries, notebooks, lists; writing reviews, novels, poems; and leaving behind vast correspondences
with colleagues, friends and especially Clara; Schumann’s critical writings from his own journal ‘New Leipzig Musical Times’,
founded for the sake of a ‘new, poetic future’, are still to this day, a popular and accurate reference for all the contemporary musical happenings,
and observations of musical compositions and musicians, during his time, in Europe and abroad.

The Poetry in Life – Schumann, Adès, Brahms is an exploration of Schumann’s literary life that spilled wholeheartedly into his musical creative output in songs, solo piano music
and chamber music; a look into the works of Schumann’s prolific parallel, the contemporary British composer Thomas Adès, who was also born to a poet and for whom the intertwining of literature
and music comes so naturally; and which closes with the musical poetry found in the mature and late years of Brahms,
a younger German Romantic discovered at age 20 and hailed by Schumann himself as the ‘chosen one’.

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