Radio 3 in Concert: John Eliot Gardiner conducts Schumann at the Royal Concertgebouw

John Eliot Gardiner conducts Scenes from Goethe's Faust, Robert Schumann's dramatic masterpiece with an all-star cast at the Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Schumann started work on this two-hour epic in 1842 and was still working on it a year before his death in 1856. For, although he was a prodigiously fast worker, on this occasion he was daunted by the task in hand, as he explained in a letter to Felix Mendelssohn: 'Any composer would not only be judged by his treatment of one of the seminal and most-widely acclaimed works in German literature, but would also be setting himself up to be compared to Mozart.' In this performance given in Amsterdam in 2019, John Eliot Gardiner conducts a top line-up of soloists including Christian Gerhaher as Faust and Christiane Karg as Gretchen. Robert Schumann: Scenes from Goethe's Faust. Christian Gerhaher (baritone: Faust), Christiane Karg (soprano: Gretchen). Louise Alder (soprano). Ann Hallenberg (contralto). Claire Barnett-Jones (mezzo). Werner Güra (tenor: Ariel). Tareq Nazmi (bass). Kurt Rydl (bass: Mephistopheles). Netherlands Chamber Choir. National Children's Choir. Laurens Collegium Rotterdam. Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. John Eliot Gardiner (conductor)