Fleurs du mal

Robert Schumann and Jörg Widmann – a musical dialogue between a modern and a Romantic composer. WERGO juxtaposes four piano works of the two composers and takes a look at Schumann on his 200^th birthday from a somewhat different perspective: His works „Nachtstücke“ and „Gesänge der Frühe“ as well as Widmann's „Toccata“ and eponymous sonata „Fleurs du mal“ are interpreted by the Sicilian pianist Fabio Romano, whom the magazine Fono Forum has recently chosen as "best up-and-coming artist of the year".

Seeing himself deeply rooted in the classical-Romantic tradition as a composer and interpreter, and regularly entering into a dialogue with Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert as a world-renowned clarinettist and experimental composer par excellence, Jörg Widmann has discovered in himself and developed a special affinity particularly towards the music by Robert Schumann. It is particularly in his chamber music works that Widmann repeatedly makes direct references to works of the great Romanticist; but there are also subtle hints at related moments: breaks – and bridges into the unknown, on either side. And not seldom are they fields of twilight, of nightmares, of the dark side of the Moon which are explored…