Robert Schumann is considered the epitome of German Romanticism. Thanks to his special flair for language and poetry, he was able to translate romantic ideas into music in an ideal way. Let yourself be carried away into the world of fairy tales and legends, heroes and dreamers, into the realm of fantasy and emotions at the Mondsee Music Days 2025.
Here is an excerpt from this year's program:
The program opens with Schumann's Fantasy in C major, op. 17, a work of great passion that reflects his admiration for Beethoven. The program is complemented by Jörg Widmann's haunting "Nachtstück" and Beethoven's String Quartet in E flat major. A prelude that already gives an idea of the complexity of Schumann's sound world.
It becomes playful and fairytale-like when Janáček's "Pohádka" (Fairy Tale) meets Schumann's "Fairy Tales". The evening is pervaded by a fascination for Johann Sebastian Bach, whose musical influence is reflected in Mozart's Adagio and Fugue and Schumann's studies in canonic form. Widmann's "Versuch über die Fuge" and Bach's Brandenburg Concerto provide a rousing finale.
A special concept characterizes the concert under the motto "200 years", which combines musical milestones from different centuries. While Schumann's "Frauenliebe und -leben" explores the romantic soul life of a woman, Samuel Barber's string quartet forges an arc into the modern era before Pergolesi's "Stabat Mater" touches the listener with its deep expressiveness.
A highlight of the festival is the piano recital with Elisabeth Leonskaja, who focuses on Schubert. With sonatas and impromptus, she transports the audience into a world full of lyrical depth and floating melancholy. Special attention is also paid to Clara Schumann, whose Romances for violin and piano demonstrate her subtle compositional skills. Works by Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms complete this program and illustrate the artistic affinity of this extraordinary triangle.
Elisabeth Leonskaja © Marco Borggreve
The crowning finale of the Music Days is the concert "Finale - Role Models" on Saturday, August 30. Here, the focus will be on two other leading musical figures for Schumann: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, whom he revered as the "Mozart of the 19th century". Mozart's String Quintet in C minor and Mendelssohn's String Quintet in A major open the evening, before Schumann's own Piano Quintet in E flat major, op. 44, completes the musical arc. With a top-class ensemble, including Elisabeth Leonskaja at the piano, this concert promises to be a worthy and festive finale to the festival week.
August 22 to 30, 2025
