Norfolk Symphony Orchestra

This programme takes a journey through the absolute heights and despairing depths of the German Romantic movement in the second half of the 19th Century.

Robert Schumann was seen as a father figure for the 'New Music' and his opera, Genoveva, whilst now almost totally unknown, is a treasure trove of some of his most wonderful mature music.

After his death, the fight to follow him and inherit the mantle of Beethoven was fierce - both Wagner and Brahms were writing music of almost incredible richness and emotional intensity and their followers were uncompromising in their partisanship.

By 1900, the art of composition as it had been known was in tatters and there was nothing for it but to create a truly 'New Music'.

Step forward Arnold Schoenberg and his great students, Alban Berg and Anton von Webern, whose music is now well over 100 years old but is still seen as the epitome of modernity.