Richard Causton, Schumann and Brahms

Two great Romantic works – Schumann’s heart-on-sleeve Cello Concerto and Brahms’ Third Symphony – celebrate the friendship and musical kinship between the two composers.

British cellist Steven Isserlis returns to the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s season to perform Schumann’s pioneering cello concerto – the work that first gave this instrument Romantic voice. Where Schumann looks to the future, Brahms looks back to Beethoven in his taut, tightly constructed Third Symphony, once described as ‘the most nearly perfect’ of all the composer’s symphonies. An exciting world premiere of Richard Causton’s newly commissioned Ig zeg: Nu (I say: Now) opens the programme.