Brahms/Schumann: Kopatchinskaja; OAE/Alsop ***
Patricia Kopatchinskaja
© Marco Borggreve
Royal Festival Hall, 6th February 2016
Exaggerated claims were made for Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto in recent weeks. It was his final orchestral work, composed shortly before he was admitted to an asylum. After his death, Joseph Joachim helped have the work suppressed. The concerto was even believed lost until the score was eventually discovered in Berlin’s Prussian State Library – complete with a 100 year embargo. Its 1937 première was exploited for Nazi propaganda as a great German violin concerto to displace that by (Jewish) Mendelssohn. This evening’s performance by the OAE and Patricia Kopatchinskaja did little to suggest a neglected masterpiece.
Read the full review on Bachtrack.