Schumann & Friedrich: Nature in Music & Art

Part of TŌN’s Sight & Sound series

In the popular series Sight & Sound, The Orchestra Now explores the parallels between orchestral music and the visual arts. Each performance includes a discussion with conductor and music historian Leon Botstein accompanied by on-screen exhibition images and live musical excerpts, then a full performance of the works and an audience Q&A.

As the German Romantic movement took hold in the early 19th century, artists of all types began examining the relationship between nature and the human soul. Painter Caspar David Friedrich, widely considered the most important German artist of the era, portrayed nature as a setting for profound spiritual and emotional encounters. His compatriot, the renowned composer Robert Schumann, also took inspiration from the natural world. Upon moving to Düsseldorf, along the Rhine River, he wrote his buoyant Third Symphony, which he titled the Rhenish.

The exhibition Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature will be on view at The Met Fifth Avenue February 8–May 11, 2025 in gallery 999.