| Czech Philharmonic | |
| Daniel Harding | Musikalische Leitung |
| Prague Philharmonic Choir | |
| Lukáš Vasilek | Chorleitung |
| Christiane Karg | Sopran |
| Andrew Staples | Tenor |
The oratorio Paradise and the Peri was Schumann’s ticket to a place in the company of the greatest composers. Its success was so enormous that it catapulted him overnight from the status of a provincial composer to that of an international star. More than just a critical success, the work was so loved by the public that it got more than 50 performances in the first years after its première. Robert’s wife, the marvellous pianist Clara Schumann, even called it the best thing her husband ever wrote. What is less comprehensible to me is its decline from fame into utter oblivion, apparently caused by changes to concert life, which resulted in oratorios usually being performed in churches, where there was no place for the secular subject on which Paradise and the Peri was based.
The story of the Peri trying to get back to paradise turns upon the heavenly gifts that the Peri must bring. Help does not come from a drop of blood of a freedom fighter or the last breath of a girl who sacrificed herself for her lover suffering from the plague. What finally opens the gates of heaven is a tear shed by a Syrian criminal when he sees a child praying. Paradise and the Peri is full of beautiful melodies, and it borders on the genres of oratorio, opera, and song. About it, Schumann said he had wanted to write an oratorio “not for the choir, but for happy people”. And upon hearing it, Richard Wagner respectfully complemented Schumann: “Not only do I know this beautiful poem; it has even passed through my musical thoughts. But I never found the form that would let me transform it into the language of music. I am therefore sincerely glad that you have found that form.”
Daniel Harding