Stucky, Schumann and Brahms - by Richard Dyer and Robert Kirzinger, narrated by Eleanor McGourty

Summary: Listen to the Audio Concert Preview for this series. BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink is joined by revered American pianist Murray Perahia for the powerful and lyrical Piano Concerto of Robert Schumann. Schumann wrote this piece over several years. Schumann's protégé Johannes Brahms waited until his forties to complete a first symphony, but all four of his works in the genre remain central to the orchestral repertoire. In characteristic understatement, Brahms downplayed the intense, minor-mode Fourth. Opening the program is a wind ensemble re-composition, created by the American, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky of the 17th-century Englishman Henry Purcell's funeral music for Queen Mary.