An Overview of St.John's Smith Square

For the first time, during the 2002/2003 season, the Genesis Foundation supported a series of concerts. The venue was St John's, Smith Square, in London.

St John's is a church that was turned into a concert hall in the 1970s and is also used as a recording venue. It is a splendid 18th century building with a lovely acoustic and is one of the most romantic and attractive settings for listening to good music in London. Able to accommodate "historically informed" performances by quite large forces, and the regular home of the Lufthansa Baroque Festival annually, St John's is also an ideal setting for hearing chamber music, lieder and solo instrumentalists.

A Genesis Young Singers Project at St John's, Smith Square, London

A major commitment of the Genesis Foundation is to spring-boarding emerging talents. It therefore agreed to providing substantial support to a Schumann series that would run throughout 2002/2003 particularly because of the involvement of so many young professionals in the performances.

Genesis also appreciated the aim of this series to help create awareness of a legacy of music that needs wider currency not only in its own right but because of its seminal influence on subsequent composers in the world of lieder and chamber music such as Brahms, Strauss, Mahler and Wolf. The series was named after one of Schumann's most famous songs: Widmung.

Widmung - A Dedication: The Songs & Chamber Music of Robert Schumann

Many of Schumann's songs are rarely performed on the concert platform and this series was devised by Artistic Director Eugene Asti as a unique opportunity to hear some of Schumann's lesser-known songs alongside all the famous song cycles.

Schumann's songs span the range of human emotion and experience from the tender expression of the bride in Frauenliebe und-leben, to the romantic Myrthen (a wedding present for his beloved wife, Clara) and the intriguing yet unsettling atmosphere of Liederkreis, op.39.

The concerts were able to bring together many well-loved and internationally acclaimed singers including Dame Felicity Lott, Sarah Connolly (Lucretia in the Aldeburgh/ENO 'Rape of Lucretia'), Susan Gritton (Marenka in 'The Bartered Bride' at Royal Opera House), Sophie Daneman, Mark Padmore and Stephan Loges as well as many young singers already establishing themselves on the recital and opera platforms.

Eugene Asti, who devised this series, is a regular performer at St John's and one of Britain's leading accompanists.

To add further insight into Schumann's life and work he invited the internationally renowned Florestan Trio, whose recordings of Schumann's chamber music for Hyperion have received great critical acclaim, to perform Schumann's Piano Trios as well as the Trio by Clara Schumann, the inspiration behind all of Robert Schumann's songs. As expected the Florestan concerts were exceptionally exciting and inspired.

In the final concert of the series Eugene Asti invited the participation of Graham Johnson on the piano alongside him, and a quartet of singers for an evening of Schumann's vocal chamber music with piano - wonderful repertoire that is seldom heard.

Pre-concert talks, given before selected concerts at 6.30pm by the song expert, Richard Stokes, were enthusiastically received. Richard's informal approach and careful research provided a valuable insight into the repertoire and mind of the composer.