Romantic, so romantic

It was in Szczecin in 1827 that the famous Concert Overture to the suite A Midsummer Night's Dream by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy had its premiere. The composer was only seventeen years old at the time, and the premiere was conducted by the most renowned composer from Szczecin – Carl Loewe. The piece quickly became extremely popular. This is the most extraordinary phenomenon of early maturity ever to occur in music – and probably in art in general, wrote one often-quoted musicologist about it.

Sixty years later, not in Szczecin, but elsewhere, Johannes Brahms's Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor, Op. 102 had its premiere. At that time, double concertos were already a rarely practised musical form. Nonetheless, Brahms created a masterpiece of the genre, remarkable for its perfect balance between the soloists and the orchestra and the depth of its musical themes. It was also the last orchestral work by the composer.

Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 is his final symphony. Written almost immediately after the success of his first, it lay in a drawer for a decade before being published with significant revisions. In this symphony, Schumann connected all four movements into a continuous flow of music, creating a more dark and dramatic piece than his First Symphony, yet equally profoundly romantic.