Klaus Mäkelä and Janine Jansen by Purcell, Britten, Dowland, J., Schumann, From (2025/2025), Conductor Klaus Mäkelä, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Conductor Klaus Mäkelä says that a concert is like a journey through time. The composers featured on this programme were clearly inspired by older music. Robert Schumann had just suffered a nervous breakdown when he wrote his Symphony No. 2, a work in which he documents his recovery and overtly draws on the music of Bach, Haydn and Beethoven. Benjamin Britten’s music, in which the influence of older English masters is always palpable, is also in dialogue with the past. His Violin Concerto juxtaposes tradition with present-day circumstances: the year was 1939, and the threat of war imminent. With her extraordinary aptitude for capturing mood and atmosphere, violinist Janine Jansen is the perfect interpreter. Klaus Mäkelä says, ‘In Schumann’s music I always feel an aspect of the past, tradition, history. Britten too admired tradition. We make a combination with works from the 17th century by Purcell and Dowland, to prepare the atmosphere of the later works by Britten and Schumann, which contain the past. I think the music benefits from it. The cathedral-like, almost sacred atmosphere of Dowland and Purcell enhances those aspects in Schumann and Britten, putting their works in a different light.’