SCHUMANN Symphonies: No. 2; No. 4 • Christian Zacharias, cond; Lausanne CO • MDG MGD 940 1745-6 (SACD: 64:51)


This is the first time I have ever heard these symphonies played gracefully by a chamber orchestra. What makes them so beautiful is that Christian Zacharias does not employ his orchestra’s limitation of size as an excuse for delivering spiky phrasing and rude noises. (Roger Norrington! Beware of Dog!) What I encounter instead in these performances is the delicacy of Schumann’s piano suites and the fine ear of a pianist who knows this music must dance. In fairness, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra is not that small—perhaps 50-strong here—but usually the temptation would be to overcompensate with smaller-dog tensile energy.


Happily we find instead kinder, gentler versions of big-orchestra Schumann. This approach works best in the inner movements of both symphonies, but also especially well in the danceable opening allegro of the Fourth. Taken a bit faster than usual, the Adagio of the Second Symphony could actually propel a couple gracefully around the room. In the outer movements we get similar tea-dance spirit, but at the slight expense of something larger and more exciting. This is such smooth, euphonious cozy Schumann; it is almost Dvo?ák.


Schumann, of course, was obsessed by the sound of disembodied trumpets during the composition of his Second Symphony. And there is more metaphysical fear and Wagnerian mystery to be captured in its introduction than heard here. Christoph Eschenbach evoked this hauntingly in his Bamberg cycle for Virgin in the early ’90s. And Ernest Ansermet, just up the road in Geneva, didn’t do badly with it, either. Small forces have difficulty with the stasis of mood and mystery. In particular, tremoli with a large complement of strings can evoke the infinite nature of things. But in reduced numbers, they demystify and can pester like flies at a picnic.


So I shall not argue that Zacharias has exhausted the possibilities found in these symphonies, just that the beauty of his approach will surprise you, in delicious but unobtrusive surround sound. If there is perhaps more grit, force, and sheer amorous passion to be found in the Second Symphony, well, Clara Schumann would certainly have thought so. As a small symbol in her diaries reveals, she and Schumann had sex virtually every day for 10 years! I always suspected girls loved Schumann!


FANFARE: Steven Kruger

This selection is a Hybrid Multichannel Super Audio CD. The Stereo Hybrid
SACD program can be played on any standard compact disc player. The DSD
Surround and Stereo programs require an SACD player for playback.

This is a Super Audio CD playable only on Super Audio CD players.

SCHUMANN Waldszenen, Op. 82; Symphonische Etüden, Op. 13; Arabeske, Op. 18 • Martin Helmchen (pn) • PENTATONE 5186 452 (SACD: 60:52)


Martin Helmchen is a name which is probably new to no one: He has won numerous awards (including first prize in the Clara Haskil Competition in 2001), has worked with numerous illustrious orchestras, among them the Deutsche Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, and various chamber orchestras around Europe, with such master conductors as Marek Janowski, Philippe Herreweghe, Valery Gergiev, and Bernhard Klee. He has partnered in chamber music recitals with Boris Pergamenschikow, Heinrich Schiff, Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Daniel Hope, and Lars Vogt, among many others. He is, in other words, a fabulous instrumentalist. And that is clear from the current recital.


The opening Waldszenen is for me the highlight of the disc. Here Helmchen is calm and reserved for the most part: The Eintritt here acts as not just an entranceway into the piece, but into the program as a whole. Oddly, when comparing it to Volodos’s version on his live recital from Vienna, Volodos seems to shade more sweetly than does Helmchen, but Helmchen does not see the piece in the same way: Here he captures an amazing simplicity akin to the C-Major Prelude in Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book I. His continuity of sound is entrancing. Verrufene Stelle evokes perfectly the odd, almost twisted quality of those ill-reputed places which Schumann musically describes so perfectly. Of course the highlight for most people is the strange and enigmatic Vogel als Prophet . While there is hardly a pianist out there capable of attaining the magical atmosphere of this piece as well as Alfred Cortot did, Helmchen does as admirable a job as many. The chorale-like middle section sounds as odd in this performance as it should, stopping the piece in midtrack, appearing and then disappearing just as quickly. The Symphonische Etüden, performed here with the five Anhang variations interspersed throughout the cycle, works well: The extra variations seem as though they truly belong to the cycle. It is far more satisfying to hear them this way than performed together at the conclusion of the opus proper. Here Helmchen alters his sound to fit his conception of the work. This is no longer light-hearted fare. This is as heavy and brooding as Schumann gets. And perhaps Helmchen here plays the work a bit too poised, too “normal” for my tastes. I tend to like my Schumann ever more schizophrenic in its rhythmic intricacies and eccentric in its numerous sforzandi . Helmchen plays the work a bit lighter than I would like, making it sound almost like Mendelssohn, yet there are moments when this works beautifully: Etude III and even Variation V sound as though they are lost parts of Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses here. The C-Major Arabeske brings us back to the light-hearted world of the opening, acting as both conclusion and encore. The pianist plays it simply: smooth, flowing, and tender. With bonus SACD quality sound, PentaTone has done it again. This one’s a keeper.


FANFARE: Scott Noriega

The Elias Quartet has already recorded a complete cycle of Beethoven quartets at Wigmore Hall that was extremely well received by the critics. Now Sara Bitlloch, Donald Grant, Martin Saving and Marie Bitlloch present on Alpha an album devoted to Schumann: ‘We have always had a special affection for Robert Schumann’s Third Quartet. It’s one of the first works we played together. Since then we have often come back to it, as if to a splendid and familiar region that we think we know thoroughly, but which yields up new secrets with each visit. The Second Quartet, on the other hand, was a much later and more complicated discovery for us. The writing is so personal, so unidiomatic for the instruments, so full of nuances, that to begin with we found it hard to come up with a unanimous voice for this work. The enthusiasm of the first movement can easily turn into anxiety if you push it a bit too far. In the slow movement, the texture is sometimes so bare that to convey its tenderness you have to sustain it with great fervour. The capricious Scherzo is bristling with rhythmic pitfalls and requires a diabolical mastery of the instruments, while the Finale is an endless explosion of joy!’

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REVIEWS:

The Elias Quartet, whose penetration of Beethoven’s works is second to none, take Schumann’s anxiety fully into account, without in any way trying to make these later works comparable. A pity they couldn’t record all three.

– BBC Music Magazine

It’s not that their performances are so much leisurely as they are elastic. The music breathes in their hands; and even when they stretch a phrase as if to feel its emotional weight, it still sounds natural and right. The A major Quartet is, to my ears, the jewel of the set, and the Elias play it with profound tenderness.

– Gramophone

Both works heard on this new recording by the Daniel Quartet are from Robert Schumann’s significant chamber music œuvre. + Remarkably, it was within a single year (1842), at the start of his career, that Schumann composed his three String Quartets, op.41 and the Piano Quintet, op.44; both are now considered pillars of the chamber music repertoire. + The Daniel Quartet is renowned for its performances of chamber music at major venues in the USA and across Europe. + Hungarian pianist Klára Würtz – one of Brilliant Classics’ most prolific and recognized artists – joined them for the Piano Quintet.

Connolly’s is a distinguished addition to the catalogue.

In many respects Schumann is the archetype of the romantic artist: deeply influenced by literature, committed to powerfully intense emotions, creatively aware of the virtuosity of performers. He was himself a fine pianist, and the first twenty-three of his published compositions were for his own instrument. He then went on to match this achievement in the field of solo song, in which regard he became the true inheritor of Schubert’s mantle.

Another important aspect of Schumann’s creative nature was his fondness for creating large-scale compositions out of sequences of miniatures. He developed this trend in piano works such as Carnaval and Kreisleriana, and continued it in the vocal song-cycles, including for example Frauenliebe und -leben and the two groups of songs under the title Liederkreis (Opp. 24, 39).

All of these issues are germane to this collection of songs presented by Sarah Connolly with the expert support of Eugene Asti. Under the collective title 'Songs of Love and Loss', this Schumann programme includes two cycles from the great song year of 1840, the Liederkreis and Frauenliebe und –Leben. The remaining songs come from later in the composer’s life: the collection entitled Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart Op.135, the beautiful short 'Requiem' from Op.90 and 'Mein schöner Stern!' Op.101 No.4. These show no falling-off in quality, despite the commonly-held view that his encroaching final illness undermined the quality of the composer’s later compositions.

There are abundant alternative performances of Frauenliebe und –Leben and the Liederkreis, but Sarah Connolly brings a distinguished addition to the catalogue. While many great artists have brought their insights to the former, a personal favourite is the 1996 Deutsche Grammophon disc by Anne-Sophie von Otter with Bengt Forsberg (445 881 2), while in the Op. 39 Liederkreis there is always the issue of whether a man’s voice is better. Among notable interpretations is that of Bryn Terfel, for instance, with Malcolm Martineau (again DG, 447 042 2). Therefore the excellent Sarah Connolly does not become an instant top recommendation, but she does have both the technique and the insight to do full justice to these great songs.

In Frauenliebe und –leben Connolly and Asti tend towards slower tempi, perhaps missing some degree of ardour, though a real highlight of their performance is 'Du Ring an meinem Finger', in which there is much intensity. The balance between voice and piano is nicely achieved by both the artists and the Chandos engineers, while the recording venue, Potton Hall in Suffolk, is a tried and tested acoustic well suited to chamber music and songs.

Although Connolly is not a native German speaker, her treatment of the language is assured and the treatment of the text abounds in all the subtleties the songs have to offer, with a vocal timbre that is rich and nicely in focus. The collaboration of the artists seems even better in the lesser-known songs. For instance Requiem moves to a convincing climax after a beautifully chaste opening phase, and the somewhat austere songs on poems attributed to Mary Queen of Scots have an intensity that is all their own. Perhaps her preference for slower tempi pays its strongest dividends here.

-- Terry Barfoot, MusicWeb International

My colleague Victor Carr Jr. succinctly described what Schumann's three violin sonatas sound like in his review of the splendid Ara Malikian/Serouj Kradjian recording on Hänssler Classics. He rightly noted that these works are infrequently recorded as a cycle, and that alone works to the advantage of this release from violinist Jennifer Koh and her trusty piano partner Reiko Uchida.

Fortunately, their sensitive musicianship and technical aplomb warrant serious consideration. They emphasize intimacy and clarity, favoring tempos that are neither too fast nor too slow for what the music expresses. For example, they toss the A minor sonata finale's toccata-like motives back and forth in a relaxed, lilting manner that generates its own momentum--and needless to say, totally differs from the Kremer/Argerich "shock and awe" approach. The big D minor sonata's largely pizzicato slow movement stands out for the uniform precision with which the artists balance chords in similar registers, although the outer movements' symphonic dimensions benefit more from the slightly faster tempos, wider dynamic compass, and kinetic drive that keep Isabelle Faust and Slike Avenhaus (CPO) at the top of my reference list.

Don't force me to choose between Cedille, Hänssler, and CPO in the posthumous A minor, but at least let me acknowledge the additional suppleness and flexibility Uchida brings to the difficult piano part. I also should mention that Koh and Uchida dedicate their fine work on this disc to the memory of pianist Edward Aldwell, a moving and appropriate gesture.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Goethe’s Faust exerted a powerful influence on Romantic composers, offering Robert Schumann a number of unforgettable scenes drawn mainly from the mystical second part of the epic poem which he incorporated into this immensely moving large-scale cantata. Opening with the first love scene between Gretchen and Faust and concluding with the climactic scene of Faust’s redemption, Schumann created a sweeping panorama of dramatic episodes with Mephistopheles’ trickery ultimately overcome as legions of celestial beings bear Faust’s soul to heaven.

SCHUMANN Romances and Ballads: i, op. 67; ii, op. 75; iii, op. 145; iv, op. 146. Romances: i, op. 69; ii, op. 91 • Marc Michael De Smet, cond; AQUARIUS • NAXOS 8.570456 (72:46)


All 32 of the pieces presented on this release date from 1849—one of the often-troubled composer’s most productive periods—and were composed for the Dresden choirs that Schumann took over from Hiller on the latter’s departure for Düsseldorf in 1847. A fair number of them appear individually in various compilations available on the current market; but this disc appears to be the first and only presentation of the entire corpus.


On the whole, the results are well up to the best current choral standards. The ensemble blends quite well and displays considerable agility in the jauntier pieces. The echo effects in “Im Walde” are especially well brought off, as are the solo-quartet sections featured in several numbers. The recording acoustic has a touch of satisfying reverberation, but far from so much as to spoil the ensemble’s excellent diction.


The programming order presents a touch of welcome imagination too. The mixed-choir works are organized into four sets, the women’s choir numbers into two; and the latter are interspersed among the former, creating a more varied listening experience than would be the case otherwise. As with some other recent Naxos releases, texts and translations are eschewed in favor of a reference to these materials on the label’s Web site. One (at least this one) would of course prefer to have them directly at hand; but Keith Anderson’s typically generous annotations do include brief summaries of each text.


FANFARE: James Carson

SCHUMANN, R.: Intermezzi, Op. 4 / Impromptus, Op. 5 / 3 Roma

Last disc of the complete works for piano and piano and chamber music, this recording comes as the peak of a series which confirmed Eric Lesage as THE specialist of the Schumann repertoire. The harvest of outstanding reviews, for his recordings as much as for his very numerous concerts (several world tours), promises a brilliant future for this latest reference. This ultimate recording of the complete works for and with the piano by Schumann, the pure Saxon of the East, ends by the alpha and omega of his pianistic creation, such as glimpsed and heard in the West, in Rhineland. It thus opens on the Rhine, in Mannheim, with the charming Variations on the name 'Abegg" of 1830 and closes in Düsseldorf with the mysterious variations, called Geistervariationen, composed and copied out in February 1854, just before and right after his attempted suicide in the Rhine, leading to his permanent internment in Endenich (Bonn), facing the sacred river of the Germans...

Arch-Romantic Robert Schumann’s (1810-1856) first two-dozen or so opuses feature some of the finest solo piano compositions of the era. Included among these are the works on this two-disc set of WWII-era recordings by the great yet controversial Franco-German pianist Walter Gieseking (1895-1956). +Most noted for his sublime pedal technique and contrapuntal clarity, his performances of Debussy, Ravel and the modernists were often revelatory and are still considered benchmark interpretations.

The Benvenue Fortepiano Trio bowed on Avie earlier this year with an ear-opening account of Mendelssohn's Piano Trios. They return with another rarity, Schumann's Piano Trios performed on period instruments. Anchored by the enterprising violinist Monica Huggett, whose releases on Avie have made the Top Five of the Billboard Classical Chart and earned a Grammy nomination, the Benvenues historically-informed style lend a unique clarity to these early romantic masterpieces. This is the first of two releases by The Benvenue Fortepiano Trio surveying Schumann's works for the genre. critical acclaim for the Benvenue Fortepiano Trio "commendable precision and brio" - BBC Music Magazine "readings that emphasise the music's drawing-room intimacy and gently undulating emotions." - Classic FM Magazine summary The Benvenue Fortepiano Trio returns with another rarity, period-instrument performances of Schumann's Piano Trios.

SCHUMANN Piano Trio No. 2 in F, Op. 80. Kinderszenen , Op.15 1. Piano Quartet in E?, Op.47 2 • Benvenue Fp Tr; 1 Eric Zivian (fp); 2 Adam LaMotte (va) • AVIE 2272 (71:07)


In the second movement of the Piano Trio on this disc, violinist Monica Huggett does something remarkable for this modern age: She plays downward portamentos in her phrasing of the musical line. They are not as broadly accented as the portamentos one heard from Bronislaw Huberman, but they are a bit broader than those used by Emanuel Feuermann in the late 1930s and early ’40s. What this tells me is that Huggett, who prides herself on being a historically informed performer of classical music from two centuries (18th and 19th), is fully aware that portamento was used as an expressive device in this music, and that to eliminate it is incorrect. More to the point, the performance of the trio as a whole evinces a systemic approach to the music. One can also hear upward portamento in Huggett’s solo lines in the first movement of this trio. By leading the way stylistically, she encourages moments of rubato, sharp attacks and releases in the dramatic passages, and an overall feeling of involvement that is rare among many such groups nowadays.


Moreover, the trio’s choice of instruments also reflects an enlightened view of the music. No half-harpsichord-sounding fortepiano is involved here, but an instrument built by Franz Rausch in 1841. Huggett’s instrument is the oldest, being a violin of the Dutch Cuypers School c. 1770, while Tanya Tomkins’s cello was made by Joseph Panormo in London in 1811. Using instruments close in style to those used by Schumann makes an enormous difference. There is, in fact, very little difference in sound (though a less powerful sustain) between Eric Zivian’s fortepiano and a more modern instrument, and this added richness gives more body to the music. The incredible realism of the recorded sound (the microphones used are not identified, but the venue was Old St. Hilary’s Church in Tiburon, California) also assists greatly in both presence and in giving some natural “air” around the instruments.


Rather surprisingly, considering his superb attention to detail and his style which allows for several little rubato touches, I found Zivian’s interpretation of Kinderszenen somewhat less convincing. I’m not sure, in this case, if the fortepiano was recorded a bit too closely, lending a somewhat overloud aspect to certain movements, but in any case I didn’t feel that he captured the remarkable ambiance that one feels, for instance, in the performance by Clara Haskil. Listen, for example, to the famous “Träumerai”: tempo and phrasing are exactly right, but somehow the feeling is wrong—just a bit too “klunky.” (It could be that, in this case, the instrument’s lack of a larger frame and greater sustaining ability is to blame, rather than the player.)


Despite this slight disappointment, when they reach the Piano Quartet in E? (with guest violist LaMotte), they again play with that rare combination of elasticity and emotional involvement. Listening carefully, I think I know why the fortepiano sounds better in ensemble: The cello’s rich tone compensates somewhat for the slightly leaner, less sustained tone of the keyboard. But whatever the reason, there is no question but that both mood and structure never sound forced but, rather, “evolve” in the listening process. You almost feel privileged to be listening in on a performance this good. No matter when you play this disc, whether alone in the evening or with friends in the afternoon, you’ll be completely taken in and involved in the Benvenue Trio’s music-making. It is as if these musicians are not the ones communicating with you, but Robert Schumann himself.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley