Schumann - Ouvertüre zu Die Braut von Messina | Andrew Manze | WDR Sinfonieorchester

Robert Schumann's overture to Friedrich Schiller's “The Bride of Messina” performed by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Andrew Manze. Recorded live on November 28, 2025, at the Cologne Philharmonic Hall. Robert Schumann – Overture to Schiller's “The Bride of Messina,” Op. 100 WDR Symphony Orchestra Andrew Manze, conductor ► For more information about the symphony orchestra, concerts, and current livestreams, visit https://sinfonieorchester.wdr.de ► The WDR Symphony Orchestra on Facebook  / wdrsinfonieorchester   Introduction to the work: On October 18, 1850, the writer Richard Pohl sent an opera libretto based on Schiller's tragedy The Bride of Messina or The Enemy Brothers to Robert Schumann. Schumann was torn, but ultimately decided against composing an opera based on this material, which seemed too closely associated with Schiller's play. However, Schumann later wrote Schumann later wrote: “However, after reading the original repeatedly, I had some ideas for an overture, which I then completed in a short time.” This orchestral piece, which Schumann sketched in Düsseldorf in December 1850 within a few days, unfolds with dramatic clarity and poetic depth. An energetically explosive motif in the violins at the beginning of the introduction symbolizes the fateful curse on the princely house in Messina. The first theme develops from this. Opposite it, the clarinet introduces the lyrical secondary theme that characterizes the female central figure, Beatrice. A rhythmically striking interlude hints at the tragic, deadly struggle between the enemy brothers: Both have fallen in love with Beatrice, without realizing that she is their sister. In contrast to the heated brother motifs, the woodwinds sound the wistful voice of the mother, pleading for reconciliation, but she is unable to prevent the murder of one and the suicide of the other son. Schumann works densely and polyphonically with motivic seeds that repeatedly illuminate new facets of the plot. He understood his work to be “more of a theater overture than a concert overture,” but the overture was probably never performed as a prelude to Schiller's play, but always independently in the concert hall. At the premiere on March 13, 1851, in Düsseldorf, conducted by the composer, the audience reacted with restraint. But the Overture, Op. 100, remains an impressive example of Romantic program music and, at the same time, an expression of Schumann's humanistic worldview, which seeks beauty even in destruction . Text: Christian Lehmann