Keyboard Poetry

About the production

Szymon Nehring, born in Krakow in 1995, was a finalist at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw at the age of 19 and has since performed at premier concert halls around the world. In his programme of works by Chopin and Schumann, he explores the world of Romanticism.

In Chopin's multi-layered nocturnes in particular, the singing melody forms the centre of the character pieces, which still enchant us today with their often melancholy beauty. The Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor, on the other hand, is a virtuoso waltz fantasy. It begins with somewhat eerie, muted triplets that pervade the entire piece like dark forebodings. The »Marche funèbre« from his second piano sonata has a firm place in the collective musical memory as the funeral march par excellence and is also anchored in pop culture. It was composed in 1837, two years before the other movements of the sonata. 

Also published in 1837 was the first edition of Robert Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, his opus 13, which his future wife Clara Wieck premièred in Leipzig in the same year. A work of variations in twelve parts, Schumann took its theme from Ignaz Ferdinand Freiherr von Fricken in Bohemia. Schumann had secretly become engaged to his daughter Ernestine in 1834, until his love for Clara, the daughter of their piano teacher Friedrich Wieck, led to the cancellation of the engagement. Clara's performance of Robert Schumann's Symphonic Etudes initiated a special kind of romance. It culminated in their marriage in 1840.

The etudes, which Schumann revised in 1852, are categorised as symphonic due to their pianistic and tonal richness. In them, Schumann draws an arc from the Baroque to the Classical and Romantic periods and also allows his alter egos Florestan and Eusebius to have their say musically. In Schumann's mind, these two figures symbolise the contrasting sides of his own character: Florestan represents the passionately defiant, stormily combative side, while Eusebius represents the lyrically dreamy, meekly contemplative side. Between light and shadow, metaphorical brightness and darkness, all audible colours of poetry emerge on the black and white keys of the piano under the hands of Szymon Nehring.

Pisane zwukowe barby na běłych a čornych tastach

Colourful tones on white and black keys

Frédéric Chopin

Nocturne No. 1 in F major op. 15

Scherzo No. 2 in B flat minor op. 31

Sonata in B flat minor op. 35

Robert Schumann

Symphonic Etudes op. 13