Philharmonic Close-Up – Norman and Maier-Röntgen

Amanda Maier-Röntgen’s romantically surging piano trio was lost for nearly 140 years, but was fortunately rediscovered in 2016. It is music by a little more than twenty-year-old Amanda Maier, who had just moved to Leipzig and was in love with her future husband Julius Röntgen. A later relative of Amanda Maier once said of the trio’s final movement that “it is like hearing the spring flood surge forth after the harsh winter” – a fitting image of the music.

Ludvig Norman’s String Octet was composed just eight years before Amanda Maier-Röntgen’s piano trio. Norman was one of the great musical figures of his time. With his three symphonies and as many overtures, he is the foremost Swedish symphonist of the 19th century after Franz Berwald. He also wrote excellent chamber music, including two piano trios, a number of string quartets and this string octet in the spirit of Schumann and Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

When Amanda Maier performed her own violin concerto with the Royal Court Orchestra in 1876, it was in fact Ludvig Norman who stood on the podium. In this concert, we hear a group of string players from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, joined by pianist Kiyo Wada and the orchestra’s former concertmaster Patrik Swedrup.