Umberto is a pianist composer who grew up in the world of opera, as his mother was a famous opera diva. Since losing his eyesight in an accident, he has turned his back on music. He lives in a Palladian villa on the shore of Lake Como, and there are three exquisite pianos in his home – but each remains silent.

Catriona is a music therapist, hired by Umberto’s mother to help him reconnect with his passion. This is quite the undertaking, she discovers when she arrives at Villa Monteverdi, for Umberto is like an angry, sulky child, reluctant to engage in her therapeutic approaches. He is a man in terrible pain: he won’t play the piano for Catriona and he tells her to do so instead, but when she does he slams the lid of the instrument down and orders her to leave him, for the music she coaxed from the keys broke his heart.

Soon after, Catriona and Umberto are dining together when, in the mood to challenge, Umberto asks her to sing for him. Catriona was once an opera singer herself, and Umberto is curious about her voice. The choice of music is key here, and it is Umberto who chooses:  Schumann’s lieder.

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) was a pianist, and a very fine one, until a hand injury interrupted his playing. At that point he could have given up, as has Umberto in Concerto. Instead, he focused on composing – and he became one of the greatest Romantic composers. Schumann was a man of great depths who had a passionate marriage to pianist composer Clara (you can read about her on my blog here) and who suffered from episodes of severe depression. As Umberto tells Catriona, Schumann once said, ‘I should like to sing myself to death like a nightingale.’ His lieder – songs for voice and piano – are hauntingly beautiful.

Clara knows the lieder well. Years ago, when she first knew Umberto, her longing for him left her helplessly forlorn, and she found the poignant love songs cathartic. She chooses the one that most speaks to her soul, ‘Ich grolle nicht’.

In the song, Schumann set his music to this poetry by Heinrich Heine:

I bear no grudge, though my heart is breaking,

O love forever lost! I bear no grudge.

When Catriona sings, I write:

Her rich natural vibrato extracted every ounce of meaning from the poetry so that the air quivered with tides of emotion, as if she sought to pluck the heartstrings of every one of her listeners. She communicated every nuance of expression and meaning with such an instinctive understanding that she lost herself in the music… The words told a truth of such poignancy that the song could almost have been written for her: ‘For I saw you in my dreams, and saw the night within your heart.’

Here is ‘Ich grolle nicht’ sung by ‘La Bellissima’, American opera singer Anna Moffo.

Beautiful, don’t you think? Certainly, Umberto thinks so when he hears Catriona sing.

‘Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything,’ said Plato. Will Catriona’s performance inspire Umberto, stirring his memories and rekindling his long-dormant passion? Rather than the nightingale singing to death, will Catriona sing Umberto to life?