Tetzlaff’s Herculean Widmann concerto helps Robertson look forward and back.

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
February 16, 2015

The highly regarded, yet infinitely challenging, composer (and clarinettist) Jörg Widmann might not be the obvious choice to pair with Robert Schumann but, as David Robertson cannily demonstrates, the two share some common traits that place them firmly in the same unbroken line of German musical development. And with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra on top form plus Christian Tetzlaff the soloist (and dedicatee) of the Widmann, here was an evening of thought-provoking pleasures.

Schumann’s Third and Fourth symphonies are something of a misnomer, mostly because the fourth should have been the second, so playing them in reverse order allowed us to properly witness the composer’s development as a symphonist. The first observation worth making about the Fourth is how extraordinarily forward looking it is. Time and again one is reminded of Brahms, and in particular the Third Symphony, a work still 43 years away (the second movement of the latter is surely inspired by the second moment of the former). Schumann was 31 when he penned it, substantially revising it 10 years later, but there’s no disguising that this is young man’s...