Schumann: Violin Concerto & Works for Violin and Piano by Clara and Robert Schumann Midori, Festival Strings Lucerne, Daniel Dodds, Ozgür Aydin

• Robert Schumann (1810 - 1856): Violin Concerto in D Minor, WoO 23:
• 1 Schumann: Violin Concerto in D Minor, WoO 23: I. In kräftigem, nicht zu schnellem Tempo 15:53
• 2 Schumann: Violin Concerto in D Minor, WoO 23: II. Langsam 06:21
• 3 Schumann: Violin Concerto in D Minor, WoO 23: III. Lebhaft, doch nicht schnell 09:49
• 5 Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102:
• 4 Schumann: 5 Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102: I. Mit Humor 03:37
• 5 Schumann: 5 Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102: II. Langsam 03:14
• 6 Schumann: 5 Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102: III. Nicht schnell, mit viel Ton zu spielen 04:16
• 7 Schumann: 5 Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102: IV. Nicht zu rasch 02:03
• 8 Schumann: 5 Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102: V. Stark und markiert 03:13
• 3 Romances, Op. 94:
• 9 Schumann: 3 Romances, Op. 94: I. Nicht schnell 03:12
• 10 Schumann: 3 Romances, Op. 94: II. Einfach innig 04:24
• 11 Schumann: 3 Romances, Op. 94: III. Nicht schnell 04:15
• 3 Romances, Op. 22:
• 12 Schumann: 3 Romances, Op. 22: I. Andante molto 03:01
• 13 Schumann: 3 Romances, Op. 22: II. Allegretto: Mit zartem Vortrage 02:56
• 14 Schumann: 3 Romances, Op. 22: III. Leidenschaftlich schnell 03:44
• Total Runtime 01:09:58

Info for Schumann: Violin Concerto & Works for Violin and Piano by Clara and Robert Schumann

Violinist Midori, Festival Strings Lucerne under the direction of Daniel Dodds, and pianist Özgür Aydin present an album of Schumann: Violin Concerto & Works for Violin and Piano by Clara and Robert Schumann, highlighting two deeply connected artistic voices. At the centre is Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto in D Minor, composed in 1853 but withheld from publication for more than eighty years after Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim questioned its place within his legacy. Long clouded by its troubled history and a problematic 1937 premiere, the concerto has only recently gained recognition as a powerful and distinctive late work, valued today for its emotional depth and expressive candour.

“In preparing this album, I sought not only to honor the historical and musical context of these works, but also to share with listeners the deeply human aspects of Schumann’s late music: the intimacy, the struggle, and the moments of fragile hope. From Clara’s uncomplicated lyricism to Robert’s lyrical introspection and folk-inspired humor, alongside the profound emotional sweep, this repertoire offers a journey through both personal and musical longing. With deep listening one falls in love with each of these pieces, welcoming us into an exploration of the multitude of reasons of our existence: to love, to suffer, to create and live in a cruel world; to absorb and sometimes inflict harm; to love music for its solace, while recognizing that it does not cure all our ills — and yet to hope; to overcome, to give in to the beauties and the ugliness of living a life.” (Midori)

The programme also includes Robert Schumann’s 5 Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102, and 3 Romances, Op. 94–lyrical miniatures from his remarkably productive year of 1849, alongside Clara Schumann’s 5 Romances, Op. 22, dedicated to Joachim and now fully restored to the repertoire after decades of neglect. Together, these works reveal an artistic world shaped by intimacy, sincerity, and clarity of expression, echoing Robert Schumann’s belief that the artist’s task is “to send light into the darkness of men’s hearts”.

This recording marks the PENTATONE debut of Midori and Özgür Aydin. Midori, an internationally celebrated violinist with numerous awards and performances on the world’s leading stages, brings her expressive depth and technical mastery, complemented by Aydin’s sensitive virtuosity at the piano. Festival Strings Lucerne and their artistic director, Daniel Dodds, have been collaborating successfully since 2012, bringing this orchestra international acclaim, and establishing themselves as one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras, both on the concert platform and in the recording studio. The album showcases the interplay of Clara’s tender lyricism with Robert’s late works, offering a vivid, emotionally resonant, and technically brilliant portrait of the Schumanns’ late musical world.

Midori, violin
Özgür Aydin, piano (tracks 12-14)
Festival Strings Lucerne
Daniel Dodds, director

Midori
is a visionary artist, activist and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience. In the four decades since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11, she has performed with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras and has collaborated with world-renowned musicians including Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, and many others.

Midori makes two appearances at Carnegie Hall this season. In the fall, she joins the Estonian Festival Orchestra with conductor Paavo Järvi for Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa as part of an all-Pärt program in honor of the composer’s 90th birthday. In April, she returns to perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s with conductor Masaaki Suzuki. Other orchestra appearances in the U.S. this season include the Boston Symphony with conductor Nodoka Okisawa in Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, and the Albany and Knoxville Symphonies.

In November, Midori performs a new work, Resonances of Spirit, for violin and electronics, written for her by the young New York-based violinist and composer Che Buford. The world premiere takes place at Williams College in Williamstown, MA, where Midori returns in February for a residency. The recital program also includes works by Beethoven, Poulenc, Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann and Schubert.

In addition to her U.S. appearances, Midori’s European soloist engagements include the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra with conductor Christoph Eschenbach, Gewandhaus Orchestra with Maestro Järvi, and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony with conductor Michael Sanderling, where she is to receive the Pablo Casals Award from the Kronberg Academy; she also performs chamber music with pianist Jonathan Biss and cellist Antoine Lederlin. She makes two appearances in London, with a Wigmore Hall recital and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In Asia, she performs recitals in Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines; joins the Festival Strings Lucerne for a tour of Japan; and performs with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta. She also performs on tour in South America this season.

Her forthcoming release on Pentatone (expected Spring 2026) is a recording with Festival Strings Lucerne of music by Robert Schuman and Clara Schumann.

Deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, Midori has founded several non-profit organizations; the New York City-based Midori & Friends, active for over three decades, offers accessible, tuition-free music education programs to students in NYC. Based in Japan, MUSIC SHARING brings both Western classical and traditional Japanese music to young people throughout Japan and developing areas of Asia; the organization’s the ICEP program travels to Cambodia this season. For the Orchestra Residencies Program (ORP), which supports youth orchestras, Midori commissioned a new work from composer Derek Bermel, Spring Cadenzas, that was premiered virtually during the COVID lockdown and continues to be performed; in 2023, ORP worked with the Afghan Youth Orchestra; this season, ORP works with the South Bend (IN) Youth Symphony and Joy of Music in Worcester, MA. Midori’s Partners in Performance (PiP) helps to bring chamber music to smaller communities in the U.S. In recognition of her work as an artist and humanitarian, she serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 2021.

Born in Osaka in 1971, she began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto, at an early age. In 1982, conductor Zubin Mehta invited the then 11-year-old Midori to perform with the New York Philharmonic in the orchestra’s annual New Year’s Eve concert, where the foundation was laid for her subsequent career. Midori recently joined the faculty of the Juilliard School; she is the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and Artistic Director of Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Piano & Strings program. She is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Smith College, Yale University, Longy School of Music and Shenandoah University, and of the 2023 Brandeis Creative Arts Award from Brandeis University.

Özgür Aydin
Turkish - American pianist Özgür Aydin made his major concerto debut in 1997 in a performance of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No.1 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In the same year, he won the renowned ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the Nippon Music Award in Tokyo – recognition that has since served as the basis for an active and diverse international performing career. He is also a laureate of the Cleveland International Piano Competition.

Mr. Aydin has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras in Germany and Turkey, as well as with the BBC Concert Orchestra London, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, Slovak State Philharmonic and Canada’s Calgary Philharmonic. Frequently invited to summer music festivals, he has appeared at Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Ravinia and Edinburgh. He is a guest at many prestigious venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Munich’s Herkulessaal and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall.

Mr. Aydin has made recordings of solo piano works by Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninov. His performances of the complete cycles of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas and 5 concertos as well as Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier have been highly praised by the critics.

He is also a dedicated chamber musician, he enjoys recurrent collaborations with violinists Midori and Kolja Blacher, cellist Clemens Hagen and members of the Berlin Philharmonic. A new recording with Midori consisting of works by Bloch, Janacek and Shostakovic is released on Onyx Classiscs.

Born in Colorado, USA to Turkish parents, Mr. Aydin began his music studies at the Ankara Conservatory in Turkey. He subsequently studied with Peter Katin at the Royal College of Music in London and with Prof. Kammerling at the Hanover Music Academy. He has also received valuable instruction from artists such as Tatiana Nikolaeva, Andras Schiff and Ferenc Rados.

Daniel Dodds
is an inspiring musical force. His enthusiasm and compelling energy on stage elicits “joie de vivre” in fellow musicians and audiences. Concerts have led Daniel Dodds to major classical music venues in all inhabited continents, as Artistic Director of Festival Strings Lucerne, as a soloist together with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Oksana Lyniv, Alexander Briger and Stanley Dodds, and as a chamber musician, documented by numerous live radio and TV performances. The Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra, the Sophia Philharmonic Orchestra, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the Australian World Orchestra and the Festival Strings Lucerne are amongst the orchestras with which Daniel Dodds has collaborated with as a soloist.

With his critically acclaimed solo CD “Time Transcending” released by Oehms Classics, Daniel Dodds shows that he knows no limits on the violin. As Artistic Director of Festival Strings Lucerne, Daniel Dodds combines Festival Strings Lucerne‘s warm expressive sound, characteristic of the Viennese music tradition of it‘s founders Rudolf Baumgartner and Wolfgang Schneiderhan, together with a finely honed sense of style and musical timing, to create music that is spell binding in its depth of color and sense of drama.

“The five movements appeared to light up from within of their own accord. Baroque rationality and romantic emotionalism happily complemented each other…” - Frankfurter Neue Presse

“What Daniel Dodds achieved from the first desk in the Dvoràk was simply splendid and lent the piece exemplary melodic intensity, sensous timbre and vigour” - Neue Luzerner Zeitung

Daniel Dodds has expanded Festival Strings Lucerne‘s repertoire to include exciting performances of works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Milhaud, Vasks and Gubaidulina, as well as commissioned works by Swiss composers such as Luigi Laveglia and Stephan Hodel. Enthusiastic responses from audiences the world over have led Daniel Dodds and the Festival Strings Lucerne to be invited as the first Swiss orchestra to perform at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, to inaugurate the Giovanni Arvedi Auditorium in Cremona, and to appear regularly at major music Festivals such as Lucerne Festival, Schleswig Holstein Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, Musica Insieme Bologna and Hong Kong Music Festival.

Daniel Dodds appears regularly as concertmaster of the Australian World Orchestra, working together with acclaimed conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Sir Simon Rattle and Simone Young, and appearances as guest concertmaster include concerts with Camerata Salzburg and Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Passionate about accompanying and advising young musicians and violinists on their musical journey, Daniel Dodds has a violin class at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. He also meets and coaches young musicians whilst on tour abroad and at the Talent week of the Festival Strings Lucerne during the summer.

Born in Australia to Australian Chinese parents, Daniel Dodds started playing violin at the age of five with Alita Larsens. He completed his violin studies with Gunars Larsens in Lucerne, Switzerland as well as Keiko Wataya in Utrecht, Holland. Daniel Dodds gained further guidance and inspiration from personalities such as Rudolf Baumgartner, Franco Gulli and Nathan Milstein, who, upon hearing Daniel Dodds rendition of a Paganini Caprice, remarked: “Who is this violinist, he could truly be Paganini‘s Grandson!”

Daniel Dodds performs on the “ex Hämmerle – ex Baumgartner” 1717 Stradivarius, kindly loaned by the Festival Strings Lucerne foundation.

Booklet for Schumann: Violin Concerto & Works for Violin and Piano by Clara and Robert Schumann