Conductor and Naxos artist Marin Alsop discusses Robert Schumann’s four symphonies in the wake of her recordings of the works as reorchestrated by Mahler (8.574429 and 8.574430). Following observations about instrumental developments of the time, Mahler’s myriad tweaks to the score, and the somewhat bipolar flavour of the music (with counterpoint always at hand as a periodic stabiliser), she moves on to a detailed appreciation of each symphony, demonstrating Schumann’s distinctive contribution to the development of the genre “with one foot in the past, and one in the future.”