On January 26, Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax premiere Peter Lieberson's newest work, Remembering Schuman, commissioned by the San Francsico Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam) and Barbican (London).
Please click here for a list of other performances.
Lieberson comments on the piece:
I have always had a special feeling for Schumann. Even as a young man I loved the sensibility of his piano music, but I was also somewhat scared by how unhinged his music could be. When I was trying to compose this work a Schumann piece kept going through my head. I had trouble placing it but eventually realized it was the third variation of his Symphonic Etudes — some funny march music that is evoked in my first movement, Variations on Simple Chords. The second movement is Variations on a Simple Melody, which might suggest more connection to a song style. The third movement is Variations on A-S-C-H, but for some reason the motif insisted on coming out as S-A-C-H in my piece. Although all three movements involve variations, the variations aren't so clearly demarcated as they would be in a classical variations form. But of course my goal was to write an original piece rather than to specifically evoke the sound of Schumann.