To round out a memorable evening at the 2021 Verbier Festival, following a thrilling opener with Daniel Lozakovich in the Brahms Violin Concerto, the prodigious Klaus Mäkelä—just a few months before taking up his post as the newest music director of the Orchestre de Paris—leads the prestigious VFCO in Schumann's Symphony No. 2, composed between 1845 and 1846 when the composer was emerging from a period of depression. Though still tormented by mental and physical health issues, he spent much of 1846 developing this triumphant hopeful work in the key of C major.