The three works on this recording are collections of short pieces, strung together and forming a cohesive whole—a form which Schumann himself invented, developed and brought to perfection. Davidsbündlertänze (Dances of the League of David) was written after Schumann’s engagement to Clara Wieck, to whom he wrote, ‘If I have ever been happy at the piano, it was when I was composing these.’ Papillons (Butterflies) is the work of a youthful, unfettered imagination, and Carnaval is one of his most popular pieces, a display of both technique and emotion. Boris Giltburg, who took first prize at the 2013 Queen Elisabeth Competition, is one of today’s most exciting young pianists, lauded for his ‘massive and engulfing technique, supporting interpretations that glow with warmth and poetic commitment’ (Gramophone).

These wonderful musical leaves, compiled for us by the pianist Tobias Koch for the fourth CD of his Schumann series on GENUIN, waft towards us as if from distant times. Alongside works of Schumann, we find delicate treasures by Johannes Brahms, Theodor Kirchner und Voldemar Bargiel – all works that these composers would have written in Schumann's poetry album, so to speak. Some of them appear on CD for the first time here. And alongside this allurement of rarity, Koch's floating, breathing piano sound fascinates us once again, conjuring up the period of these pieces with their impetuous feelings, salons and yearning for distant places - fragile and moving miniatures...

Some of Robert Schumann’s rarest piano music can be heard in this disc, which ranges from his precocious Titania Overture arrangement to the Ghost Variations, the theme of which, he told his wife Clara, had been sung to him by angels. His Beethoven Studies survive in three sources, whilst his admiration for his contemporaries Schubert and Chopin is shown by two works containing a series of variations. The 1836 Third Sonata is included in the pre-1853 revision and also included is the original version of what became his very popular Toccata, Op. 7.

Schumann at Pier2 is not a usual documentary, it explains the whole idea behind the project and it contains footage from rehearsals, comments from Paavo Järvi about the symphonies and the interpretation, biographical information about R. Schumann and footage of musicians who explain and play key themes and more. Stars of the film are the conductor Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and it´s filmed at „Pier2“, a former dockyard in the harbour of Bremen.

“Järvi's Schumann is most notably extremely exciting, performed with a lot of enthusiasm.“ -- Fono Forum

"Since their great Beethoven-Cycle Paavo Järvi and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie are one of the top ensembles." -- Crescendo

Repertoire:
Excerpts from
Symphony No. 1, Spring, Op. 38
Symphony No. 2, Op. 61
Symphony No. 3 Rhenish, Op. 97
Symphony No. 4, Op. 120

Bonus:
- The making of Schumann at Pier2

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo (whole DVD) / DTS 5.1 (concert film only)
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English (whole DVD) / German, French, Spanish, Korean, Chinese (concert film only)
Booklet notes: English, German, French
Running time: 98 mins (concert film) + 18 mins (bonus)
No. of Discs: 1 (DVD 9)

Demand for piano duet material in the nineteenth century was such that the market expanded to an unparalleled extent. The preparation of an easily playable four-hand piano reduction was of critical importance to a work’s dissemination and Robert Schumann, himself a keen duet performer, wrote for the medium with enthusiasm. He arranged his Symphony No. 2 himself, aided by his wife Clara, expending considerable time and effort on the work. The overtures show the variety of arrangers involved, such as his brother-in-law Woldemar Bargiel and the organist Robert Pfretaschner, both of whom Schumann held in the highest regard.

As keyboards became more powerful during the nineteenth century, so demand for piano duet arrangements increased dramatically. Robert Schumann, already a keen duet player, wrote for the burgeoning market, though largely for the salon and not the concert stage. He almost always supervised the arrangements of his music but the Overture to Hermann and Dorothea is rare in that he arranged it himself. Symphony No. 3 'Rhenish' was arranged by his esteemed colleague and disciple Carl Reinecke, while the Overture to Scenes from Goethe's Faust was the work of his brother-in-law Woldemar Bargiel.

From the early 19th century up until the early 20th the piano was your home entertainment center, before radio and recordings were invented or widely available. This meant that if you wanted to check out Brahms’ new symphony or Verdi’s new opera, either you had to attend a live performance or play it on the piano, usually with friends or family members. This is why most orchestral, choral, operatic, and chamber works were disseminated in the form of four-hand piano arrangements.

As an avid duet player, Robert Schumann not only wrote delightful original pieces in this genre but also supervised four-hand arrangements of his works, although he created relatively few of these himself. At first Otto Dresel’s arrangement of the A major String Quartet Op. 41 No. 3 met with Schumann’s approval; nevertheless, the composer made revisions, adding slower metronome indications to better accommodate the piano’s extended register and sonority. In fact, Schumann listed this arrangement in his catalog of works. Here the Dresel/Schumann A major quartet receives its premiere recording as part of the first of a projected seven-disc survey of Schumann piano duet arrangements by the composer, his friends, and associates.

You can’t help but respect the Eckerle Piano Duo’s meticulously calibrated ensemble values and rhythmic exactitude, although a slightly faster second movement basic tempo might convey the composer’s agitato directive more effectively. Surprisingly, the Piano Quintet’s strong textural contrasts and sense of interplay between musicians loses very little in translation to the piano duet medium, possibly due to Clara Schumann’s intelligent balancing of registers and liberal yet discreet deployment of octave doublings.

By contrast, Theodor Kirchner’s transcription published by C. F. Peters is more conservatively laid out for two players, and consequently is less interesting to hear, although much easier to play. Again, the Eckerle Duo has worked out the balances, tempo relationships, dynamic scaling, and pedaling to an impressively polished degree; you’ll never hear the Scherzo’s ornaments so uniformly and accurately articulated, for example. At the same time, I prefer the shapely exuberance, supple playfulness, and conversational give and take that the Duo d’Accord brings to its Oehms Classics world-premiere recording. Piano-arrangement mavens considering this release may be further tempted by its excellent sound, plus Joachim Draheim’s well-written and informative booklet notes.

-- Jed Distler ClassicsToday.com

Florian Uhlig on this album takes on one of the most difficult tasks of all piano music: Robert Schumann's second piano sonata. With its provocative, completely paradoxical tempo specifications and its enormous technical demands, this sonata has driven generations of pianists into the cloister: how on earth is this supposedly such a complex but at the same time emotionally charged work? Florian Uhlig shows how it works. Everything sounds very natural, fluid. Technical issues seem to play a very minor role. Instead, Uhlig prefers to take care of the work context. The recording is particularly interesting due to the inclusion of Schumann's rejected original finale and an Allegro (Op.8), which is closely related to Schumann's first Sonata Op. 11, which can also be admired on this album. And this again shows Uhlig's claim to present the most complete recording of the Schumann piano oeuvre so far, but fortunately not the most complex one. It is very pleasant that someone cares more about real music than superficial effect!

This is in many ways an easy recording to review as everything about it - presentation, sound and artistry - is pleasing. Vladimir Feltsman has already displayed the mastery and versatility of his art in a series of first rate recordings for Nimbus; now this issue may take its place in his discography as a highly desirable modern version of music not especially richly represented in the catalogue.

The Album for the Young is a collection of 43 short piano pieces originally written by Schumann for his three daughters as a result of his dissatisfaction with the practice material then available. They are much more than technical exercises, being exquisite little portraits which may be played for pleasure by children and adults alike; this is music which brings to mind the old aphorism about Mozart’s piano music being “too easy for amateurs and too difficult for professionals”. The first eighteen are simpler, the remainder, “für Erwachsenere” (for more grown up ones) more complex. The shortest,” The Wild Horseman”, lasts only thirty-five seconds, the longest, “Wintertime II, just over four minutes, but by and large each takes only a minute or two and their variety makes the 76 minutes’ duration of the recital pass quickly.

This is essentially “Hausmusik” for private, domestic pleasure and consumption, not performance in a hall and thus suits the intimacy afforded by a recording, especially if listened to on earphones, when Feltsman’s tonal nuances and dynamic subtleties emerge clearly. The sound is typical of Nimbus’ engineering: warm, slightly reverberant and not too close to the piano. It also reveals the perceptible, and in this case quite endearing, trait common to many interpreters, of occasionally providing a background vocalise obbligato which is not by any means too distracting but rather indicative of the delight Feltsman takes in the melodies he is playing.

The music is charming, full of rippling melody and engaging caprice. The simple, opening melody is a nursery tune reminiscent of Mozart; there follows a medley of neatly characterised miniatures mostly on a seasonal or rustic theme. The subject matter of some, like the “Hunting Song”, is instantly apparent to the ear, others less so, so it would have been nice if Nimbus had provided English translations of the individual titles for non-German speakers. Without resorting to a dictionary or Wikipedia, the casual listener will be left wondering what titles such as “Erinnerung” (Remembrance/Memento/Souvenir/Keepsake/Reminiscence – take your pick), “Weinlesezeit” (Grape Harvest), “Schnitterliedchen” ( The Reaper’s Song) and “Erntliedchen” (Harvest Song) mean.

As Feltsman remarks in his notes, you cannot imagine this music being played on anything other than a piano, such is its typically Romantic reliance upon colour and texture, but a few pieces such as “Little Étude” glance backwards to Bach, only to be immediately succeeded by a piece of arch-Romantic sensibility in “Spring Song”.

A delightful recital from one of the best pianists active today.

-- Ralph Moore, MusicWeb International

Schumann, R.: Album Fur Die Jugend

SCHUMANN Four Marches, Op. 76. Four Fugues, Op. 72. Seven Piano Pieces in the Form of Fughettas, Op. 126. Album for the Young: “Wilder Reiter” (alternative version); Additional Pieces, WoO 16 and 30; Album Leaf: Foreboding • Juan Carlos Rodriguez (pn) • NAXOS 8.573094 (69:05)


Naxos has been issuing Schumann piano discs, including this disc of relatively neglected music, by different pianists. Of the music found here, I had heard only the Fugues before this disc arrived: the fugues and the one march, Op. 76/2, that Richter recorded. There is little competition for this recording: Those collectors who have the complete Schumann piano music by Karl Engel are lucky. I have only half the set, and Engel’s recordings, made in the 1980s, are out of print. This new disc by a solid pianist with wide-ranging experience, fills a gap. It begins with the Four Marches, op. 76, which the very unmartial Schumann wrote in 1849, presumably in sympathy with the rebels of those restless years. According to the notes, Schumann himself dodged the draft by hiding in his house. (That they didn’t find him suggests the lack of imagination of imperial forces.) The marches are of course not meant to be marched to: They each have a central trio that breaks the thumping rhythm. Despite Richter’s preference for the second of these marches, I find the third, with its subtitle “Camp Scenes,” the most charming of these pieces. It begins with a wistful theme, and the trio moves in triplets. Schumann must have meant to give us a break from the aggressive rhythms of the other marches.


The fugues, op. 72 and op. 126, are tributes to Bach. The sprightly second fugue from op. 72 in fact sounds like the master. Perhaps for that reason I prefer such pieces as the first from op. 72, with its spare textures and gentle theme. Rodriguez plays this initial fugue gently, and effectively. There is nothing obscure about Schumann’s publication Album for the Young , except that it turns out he wrote many more such pieces than he initially published. Here, Rodriguez plays 21 such short pieces, which range in length from 18 seconds to two minutes and 40 seconds. He also plays the well-known “Wilder Reiter” in a version with a different ending than we are used to. The additional pieces begin with a bird call: It is subtitled “Cuckoo in Hiding.” It is followed by a playful uptempo piece in which the hands pursue each other. It’s meant to evoke a game of tag. In the midst of these charming program works are tributes to composers Handel, Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and Schubert. For the Handel tribute, Schumann has simply arranged the theme known as The Harmonious Blacksmith, a piece so well known in the 19th century that Dickens jokingly mentions it in Great Expectations. The disc ends with an Albumblatt, a piece of music whose title Ahnung is translated as “foreboding.” This two-and-a-half-minute piece was only rediscovered in 2007. It is a restless piece played placidly by Rodriguez.


Although it contains no towering masterpieces, this disc with its fine renditions of little-known (at least to me) Schumann should appeal to many listeners.


FANFARE: Michael Ullman

The three works on this release span a period of fifteen years- years in which the young Schumann suffered forcible separation from his beloved Clara, followed by their marriage and a brief period of relative calm, to the increasing bouts of mental instability which were to close him off from the world around him until his death. The piano Fantasiestucke op. 111 was composed in 1851 during atime of deteriorating mental health and increasing disillusionment with his post as Music Director of the Dusseldorf Music Society. In contrast to the youthfully extroverted Fantasiestucke op. 12 of 1837, these three untitled pieces are “of a serious and passionate character,” as Clara described them. The Fantasie in C major op. 17 is one of Schumann’s most powerful large-scale piano works, composed during the bitter period of his enforced separation from Clara. Schumann completed his cycle of nine forest piano miniatures, Waldszenen, in 1849, while struggling with increasing bouts of mental instability and depression. Each piece is headed by a descriptive title. These masterly tone paintings display Schumann’s genius in creating miniature images consummate in expression, characterization and mood. Critics have praised Einav Yarden’s previous recordings for Challenge Classics: “She pairs Beethoven with Stravinsky to striking effect, merging that unlikely couple with imagination and exceptionally vivid playing.” (The Washington Post) “Yarden plays a wonderfully exuberant, vibrant Haydn, glowing, transparent, adventurous, at times intimately chamber-music-like, at times grand and orchestral. A voice for Haydn!” (Fono Forum)

SCHUMANN Märchenbilder. 3 Romances. Widmung. Fantasy Pieces. Adagio and Allegro. C. SCHUMANN 3 Romances, op. 22 • Kronberg Academy Masters • PROFIL 10071 (57:40)

These young performers are all members of the Kronberg Academy Masters, a foundation established in connection with the Frankfurt University of Music and the Performing Arts that is dedicated to assisting young and talented artists pursuing performing careers by mentoring them with established musicians. The performers on this recital demonstrate the effectiveness and quality of the program.

Though the title of this disc is Romantic Inspirations: The music of Robert and Clara Schumann , we see that the lion’s share of the music belongs to Robert. This is not unusual, as most other compilations I have seen sort of short-shrift Clara as well. But her Three Romances for violin and piano were composed relatively late in Robert’s career, and were probably inspired by the family acquaintance of Joseph Joachim that was made at that time. The pieces are fully professional and quite entertaining, showing Clara to be no mean melodist herself—I wish there was more here, and there is certainly room for it.

Robert’s works are the standards usually given from his “late chamber music” year of 1849. Though he wrote them for specific instruments (op. 94: oboe, op. 73: clarinet, op. 70: horn, op. 113: viola), he was pragmatic enough to not be too doctrinaire about instrumentation, and all of these works have been played on alternative instruments. Only the viola-bred Märchenbilder retains its pristine scoring on this recording.

Those wanting the original intentions of the composer will have to look elsewhere, but that should not reflect poorly on these excellent performances. It is always exciting to me to hear young people perform Schumann. After all, he really never had a chance to grow old, was the consummate romantic, and it is fascinating to hear what his passion brings out in a young performer. These folks seem determined to let no stone go unturned as far as empathy for the romantic nature of these works is concerned, and though they do keep things within tasteful boundaries, they also are not afraid to give the Schumanns their full due in terms of fervency and strong emotion. The sound here can be a little boisterous for my taste, but adjusting it downward really helps. Good space around the players, and each is a master of his or her instrument. Recommended.

FANFARE: Steven E. Ritter

- Robert Schumann's three sonatas for violin and piano embody the 19th c. German Romantic perspective. - Entering Schumann's unique sound world, violinist Nicholas DiEugenio and pianist Chi-Chen Wu draw further inspiration from the builder Rodney Regier's unique creation of a fortepiano that embodies the ideal characteristics of instruments by Vienna's greatest early 19th c. builders, Conrad Graf and Ignaz B�sendorfer. - The release of this disc ushers in the first such recording to feature performances of all three sonatas on a fortepiano.

C. SCHUMANN Piano Trio in g, Op. 17. SCHUMANN Fantasiestücke, Op. 88. Piano Trio No. 3 in g, Op. 110 • Swiss Pn Tr • AUDITE 92549 (SACD: 77:42)


This is now the third occasion on which I’ve been privileged to review a new release by the outstanding Swiss Piano Trio. The ensemble’s Mendelssohn trios received an urgent recommendation from me in 34:6, and its account of Tchaikovsky’s Trio, if not quite as enthusiastically received by me in 36:3, still earned my nod of approval. Expectations for this Schumann disc thus ran high, and, I’m happy to report, they were not disappointed.


Clara Schumann (1819–1896) was a devoted wife, loving mother, accomplished pianist, and, no doubt, a composer of some talent. But I’ve always felt that her eminence in the latter capacity has been exaggerated both by virtue of her being spouse to one of the most famous of romantic composers and for being somewhat of that 19th-century novelty, a female composer. It has thus come about that when someone is asked to name three or four women composers, Clara Schumann invariably tops the list. Yet, if one 19th-century composer of the female gender deserves equal billing with her male counterparts, it’s not Clara Schumann or Fanny Mendelssohn; it’s Louise Farrenc (1804–1875), a composer who wrote symphonies and chamber works on a scale and of a quality comparable to many of her male contemporaries.


The Piano Trio in G Minor, dated 1846, is Clara’s only large-scale chamber work; in fact, it’s her only chamber work of any scale, period. Most of her catalog consists of songs and pieces for solo piano, though, as a teenager, and later, with the help of her husband to be, she did try her hand at a Piano Concerto. The trio was long held to be Clara’s crowning compositional achievement; some even credited it with being the inspiration for Robert’s first numbered Trio in D Minor, op. 63, written the following year. Thus, I was rather surprised to find fewer recordings of Clara’s opus listed than I would have expected; and of those currently in the catalog, more than one logically pairs it with Fanny Mendelssohn’s Trio in D Minor, written in the same year, 1846.


Whether pairing Clara’s trio with Robert’s third and final Trio in G Minor, composed in 1851, is a logical choice or not, I can’t say, although it seems to me that juxtaposing Robert’s D Minor, the one supposedly inspired by Clara’s effort, would have made more sense. However, in addition to Robert’s G-Minor Trio, Clara’s trio also shares the disc with Robert’s 1842 Fantasiestücke , which, though otherwise named, is his actual first work in the medium, though not designated or numbered as such. The present program therefore makes this new release unique, at least insofar as other current listings are concerned, although another recent disc, which also happens to be in SACD format, contains Clara’s trio and Robert’s G Minor-Trio, but not Robert’s Fantasiestücke . That recording by the Boulanger Trio on the Ars Produktion label was filled out with a work for piano trio by Wolfgang Rihm, and was favorably reviewed by Steven E. Ritter in 33:5


I’ve not heard the Boulanger disc, but the playing here by the Swiss Piano Trio leaves nothing to be desired. I doubt that Clara’s trio has ever received a more loving performance. The only word that describes the ensemble’s tone is voluptuous, and Audite’s perfectly positioned and balanced recording affords that ideal sweet-spot perspective. I do agree with Steven that Clara’s trio is not Robert’s. One has only to listen to the first few bars of Robert’s G-Minor Trio to recognize the difference between talent and genius. But I honestly have to say that I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated Robert’s trio as much as I have in this performance. The Swiss players seem to be absolutely swept away by the score, sweeping me away in turn. It doesn’t even feel like they’re performing the piece as much as they’re becoming one with it and living and breathing it.


This is definitely going on my provisional list of Want List candidates for 2013, and I most strongly urge you to acquire it. The Swiss Piano Trio, in my opinion, has rapidly risen to become one of the very top piano trio ensembles on today’s stage.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins