Schumann's River Rhine

Robert Schumann is often associated with miniaturist forms of music, such as his many German Lieder and a huge variety of piano and chamber works. But an 1850 journey down the river Rhine with his wife Clara was sufficiently scenic and invigorating to inspire his best-known symphony for full orchestra, the grand “Rhenish” No. 3. Anton Bruckner, known equally well as a symphonist and a composer of music for the church, penned his Symphony No. 6 and the majestic Te Deum for chorus and orchestra at about the same time. The Te Deum is among the most celebrated of his choral works, having received some 30 performances in its first ten years alone.