The Ghosts

Av Solfrid Elise Lindblom

Oslo Concert Hall saw a splendid performance recently. Friday night 16th September, Oslo Filharmonien played Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto in D minor with solo violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. The violinist played the concerto with bare feet as always. And as stated by Kopatchinskaja after the performance, this piece of Schumann is a combination of vivid lyricism and veiled demonstration of ghosts hiding in the music waiting to disrupt the beautiful and emotional appearance. The performance reminded me of the movie Black Swan and the musical The Phantom of the Opera where an uninvited guest (or ‘ghost’ if we use the term of Kopatchinskaja) comes and goes during the performance, shadowing the inner conflict of the main characters. And in this case, the concerto may present the instability of Schumann’s inner selves when he was writing the violin concerto and, dying. Kopatchinskaja played a contemporary piece of music in her encore, which contained some similar ghosts in a modern context according to the violinist. It was accompanied by her own singing. The meaning of the lyrics was of less importance like Schoenberg’s “Survivor from Warsaw”. The music was a pas de deux of violin and vocal. One as the white swan, the other as the black. The black one is both the contrary and supplement of the white. And with two combined, they became a spectacular whole.