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Brahms & Schumann - Works for Cello and Piano
Christian Poltéra
Classical - Released February 16, 2024 | BIS
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Booklet
There is no single radical departure in these performances of Brahms' two sonatas for cello and piano and Schumann's Fünf Stücke im Volkston, Op. 102. Instead, what happens is that various factors come together in performances of rare variety and intensity. Cellist Christian Poltéra and pianist Ronald Brautigam have worked together before and have evolved into a chamber music unit of great cohesion. Brautigam plays a copy of an 1868 Streicher piano; it is not exactly a historical instrument, but it has a precise, penetrating quality that suits the interpretation here beautifully. Póltera has a deep understanding of these works, offering readings that bring out the full range of the music's expressive traits. The Brahms Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Op. 38, loses its usual dour, growling quality; sample the exuberant finale. It has been suggested that the word "Volkston" in Schumann's Fünf Stücke im Volkston might better be translated as "popular style" than "folk style"; annotator Michael Struck suggests that the pieces are related to Schumann's sympathy for the republican movements of 1848, and Póltera imbues them with rare depth and lyricism. Of course, another side of Brahms is the intellectual complexity that gives one the delightful suspicion that one will never emerge from the thicket. The opening material of the Cello Sonata No. 2 in F major, Op. 99, has very rarely seemed so pregnant with implications and had those implications so deeply worked out. There are many available performances of all these works (perhaps a bit fewer of the Schumann), but these are marvelous and worth hearing for anyone. This release made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Schumann: Dichterliebe
Christian Gerhaher
Classical - Released August 1, 2004 | RCA Red Seal
Christian Gerhaher is the latest in a long line of expressive and intelligent baritones who have made a specialty of German lieder. With recordings of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge, and Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin, Winterreise, and Schwanengesang already to his credit, Gerhaher has already cut a considerable swath through the standard repertoire of German lieder. With this disc of Schumann's setting of Heine's Dichterliebe and of Lenau's poems grouped as a funeral tombeau, Gerhaher has chosen poems about love, madness, and death by the most literate and arguably the most romantic of the German lieder composers. Gerhaher has an appealing voice: strong and agile with a warm tone and a round sound. Gerhaher has a fine sense of the emotions expressed in the music from the heartfelt irony of the Heine lieder to the attenuated sentimentality of the Lenau lieder. And Gerhaher has a firm grasp of the symbiosis of words and music and the levels of meaning commingled in their fusion. If Gerhaher's performances have a flaw, it is his ambition to do it all right now, to infuse his performances with so much significance that they nearly sink under their own interpretive weight. RCA's sound is big and close but perhaps too intimate.© TiVo
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Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16; Wieck-Variations; Kinderszenen, Op. 15; Toccata in C Major, Op. 7
Vladimir Horowitz
Classical - Released January 1, 1962 | Sony Classical
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Schumann : Piano works
Piotr Anderszewski
Classical - Released November 22, 2010 | Warner Classics
Booklet
Distinctions
5 de Diapason -
4F de Télérama -
Gramophone Editor's Choice -
Choc de Classica -
Choc Classica de l'année
The highly personal and often chimerical piano music of Robert Schumann requires a confident interpreter who can enter the music with full awareness of the composer's quirks, yet not become so involved with their strangeness that he gets lost. For this Virgin release, the brilliant Piotr Anderszewski has chosen two works that show the extremes of Schumann's divided personality: the youthful and playful Humoresque, Op. 20, and the late, madness-tinged Morning Songs, Op. 133. In between them is the sober set of Studies for the Pedal Piano, Op. 56, which, in its serious counterpoint and controlled expressions, stands apart from Schumann's wild mood swings and emotionally turbulent music. Because these three works are seldom performed and are open to fresh possibilities, Anderszewski has free reign to explore the whimsy and sorrow of the Humoresque, the intellectuality of the Studies, and the brooding of the Morning Songs, and the range of his comprehension and expression is wide indeed. To understand Schumann's personality certainly requires exposure to much more than a single CD of his keyboard pieces, no matter how well played, but if one needed an album to encapsulate the composer's musical life in soul-stirring performances, Anderszewski's disc would be an excellent resource.© TiVo
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Humoreske, Bunte Blätter & Etudes symphoniques | Klavierwerke & Kammermusik - IV
Eric Le Sage
Classical - Released March 27, 2008 | Alpha Classics
The hardest thing about performing Schumann's piano cycles isn't playing the notes. Though the notes are often exceedingly difficult -- the combination of virtuosity and sensitivity is as difficult to bring off in its way as Liszt's combination of virtuosity and velocity -- playing them correctly is only one aspect of Schumann's difficulties. And the hardest thing about performing the German Romantic's piano cycles isn't about interpreting the individual pieces in the cycles. Though the individual pieces run the gamut from deeply intimate to overtly passionate and from wildly excited to profoundly dejected, sympathetically interpreting them, too, is only one aspect of Schumann's difficulties.As Eric le Sage recognizes in this two-disc set of four of Schumann's piano cycles, the most difficult thing about performing them is holding all the exceedingly difficult and deeply poetic individual pieces in the cycles together as a single unified work. Le Sage realizes the difficulties involved because he has so clearly triumphed over them. In the most technically challenging movements of the Etudes symphoniques, le Sage plays the notes with gusto, and in the most interpretively demanding movements of Humoreske, he delves below the surface beauty to the soulful poetry beneath. But best of all, le Sage holds these works together. By molding ritardandos between movements, grasping the tempo relationships between movements, and sculpting groups of movements into larger structural units, le Sage forges each cycle into an indissoluble whole greater than the sum of its poetic and virtuosic parts. Recorded in full, clear digital sound by Alpha, the performances on this two-disc set should be heard by anyone who reveres the German Romantic's music.© TiVo
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Schumann & Brahms
Benjamin Grosvenor
Classical - Released March 17, 2023 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Diapason d'or -
4F de Télérama
After two glorious albums devoted to Chopin and Liszt, Benjamin Grosvenor continues his exploration of the Romantic period by tackling the third leading faction of the genre, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms (who was a close friend of both the Schumann’s). The Kreisleriana, like many of Schumann’s other cycles, are a virtuosic reflection on his artistic 'doubles'; Eusebius, the melancholic dreamer, and Florestan, the feverish and passionate rake. The Three Romances Op.28 expresses Schumann's eternal and unconditional love for Clara, who saw in these pieces "the most beautiful love dialogues". In the last movement of the Sonata No. 3 Op.14, Schumann makes an elegant reference to his own Kreisleriana. Clara Wieck's Variations on a Theme of Schumann later inspired Brahms to write his own variations on the same theme. There are similarities in character to his Intermezzi at the end of the album. With his singular and unmistakable touch, Benjamin Grosvenor delivers an interpretation of unadulterated purity, with a simple and luminous audio recording that gives these great passages their deserved nobility. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz
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Robert Schumann: Complete Piano Trios, Quartet & Quintet
Trio Wanderer
Chamber Music - Released April 30, 2021 | harmonia mundi
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Booklet
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Diapason d'or -
Diapason d'or / Arte
Constantly shifting from the most impulsive exuberance to the most restrained meditation, from the most intense passion to the most innocent tenderness, this programme forms a representative panorama of Schumann’s chamber music. Going beyond the Piano Trios, which already give us a fully rounded account of Schumann, the Trio Wanderer have invited their favourite partners to join them for their interpretation of two supreme masterpieces, the Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet. © harmonia mundi
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Schumann : Symphonien 1 - 4
Sir Simon Rattle
Classical - Released May 23, 2014 | Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Hi-Res
Booklet
And so, after much expectation, the entire set of Schumann’s Symphonies by Simon Rattle has finally been released with Berliner Philharmoniker’s brand new own label. The 2013 live recordings are extraordinarily thorough: Rattle has truly outdone himself. His direction is incredibly clear, and he benefits from a smaller orchestra with a reduced amount of strings. This is a more ‘reasonable’ set up, as it restores balance between the different instruments. This is especially the case in the sections containing a lot of wood instruments, as all too often conductors let the strings drown out all other sounds without worrying about the ‘chamber music’ essence of the symphonies. It is also noteworthy that the fourth symphony is offered in its original 1841 version, which chronologically makes it his second production. The rearranged version of 1851 is thicker, and contains considerable differences in the music itself. This was not Brahms’ preferred version, and so he published the 1841 original version in 1891, just after Clara Schumann had placed the 1851 rearrangement on the market.
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Schumann: The Symphonies
Daniel Barenboim
Classical - Released November 4, 2022 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Daniel Barenboim's 80th birthday in 2022 was attended by various reissues of his work, great and small, but listeners have shown a commendable ability to see through the marketing by putting this new set of Schumann symphonies, recorded live in 2021, on classical best-seller lists. This is the third time Barenboim has recorded the Schumann symphonies, and while this reading with his well-honed Staatskapelle Berlin is not cut from fundamentally different cloth than the earlier ones, it is delicate to a perhaps unprecedented degree. Barenboim, maybe more than any other conductor, realizes that lightness is the key to these works, as much as in Schumann's songs, and that the crucial small details emerge if they are given room to do so. Each symphony is thought out as an independent unit. Consider the Symphony No. 1 in B flat major, Op. 38, where Barenboim offers an end-heavy reading and makes a powerful case for it. The lightness of the first two movements is marvelous. In the Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 97 ("Rhenish"), Barenboim makes clear the immense influence this work had on the second half of the 19th century with its fusion of sonata form and programmatic imagery; his reading flows (so to speak) just beautifully. Deutsche Grammophon's live sound is another draw in a Schumann set for the ages. Bravo, Maestro!© James Manheim /TiVo
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Diaries: Schumann
Tiffany Poon
Classical - Released February 9, 2024 | PentaTone
Hi-Res
Booklet
Physical buyers of the album will get reflections from Tiffany Poon about "feeling all the feels" and other similarly general concepts (the diaries, apparently, are hers rather than Schumann's), but this young pianist turns out to have a real feel for Schumann, and this release, her first on the PentaTone label, promises much. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of available recordings of the three Schumann works here, but Poon succeeds in standing out from the crowd. The most remarkable performance of all is one of the most popular works, Kinderszenen, Op. 15, and within that, one can sample the single most beloved Scene of Childhood, Träumerei, Op. 15/7. Poon, in a world full of heavily rubato-laden interpretations of these pieces, takes Robert Schumann's advice to Clara to heart and plays them not far from fixed tempos, but there is nothing dispassionate about her performance, which makes a great deal out of very small gestures. Later in the program, which builds in intensity as it proceeds, Poon unleashes some drama in the Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, works that are close to Schumann's heart and expressive of his fantasy life. Even here, everything is under perfect control. It has been a very long time since such freshly conceived and brilliantly executed Schumann has graced CD players and hard drives, and audiences responded by placing this album on classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Schumann : The Symphonies
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Symphonies - Released March 3, 2014 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Booklet
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5 de Diapason -
4F de Télérama -
Gramophone Editor's Choice
As Yannick Nézet-Séguin continues to explore the Romantic symphonic repertoire, it becomes increasingly apparent that he has a strong affinity for German composers, something not readily guessed of this Canadian maestro. There might be an underlying connection between his recordings of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner, for which he has received considerable attention and acclaim, and this 2014 Deutsche Grammophon album of the four symphonies of Robert Schumann, which shows Nézet-Séguin as a strong advocate for this somewhat discounted symphonist. Like Bruckner, Schumann was not a brilliant composer for the orchestra, which has put both composers at a disadvantage with audiences, and Nézet-Séguin has to do some careful balancing of the sections and dynamics to produce a transparent sound, which is not easy to do, in light of Schumann's frequent doubling of strings and woodwinds. The Chamber Orchestra of Europe responds well to Nézet-Séguin's direction, so Schumann's music is substantially lighter sounding, thanks to the lean sound of the ensemble, as well as to the noticeable care the conductor takes in drawing out distinctive timbres, and not letting the music become too homogenous in color. Of course, the expression is affected by this fresh airing of these symphonies, and as might be expected, the music is lighter, cleaner, quicker, and more exciting, due in part to the streamlining of Schumann's textures. These live recordings were made in Paris in 2012, and while they are a little shallow sounding, details are perfectly clear with the proper volume setting.© TiVo
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Robert Schumann : G Minor Sonata - Waldszenen - Gesänge der Frühe
Mitsuko Uchida
Classical - Released January 1, 2013 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
Hi-Res
Booklet
Distinctions
Gramophone Editor's Choice -
Choc de Classica
Japanese-British pianist Mitsuko Uchida continues to impress with recordings that are not so much intellectual as simply well thought out, making a challenging yet extremely satisfying overall impression. Consider the three works by Robert Schumann recorded here. Only the Waldszenen, Op. 82 (Forest Scenes), are well known. The Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22, is an early but not immature work, composed in 1830 and supplied with a new finale in 1838 at the suggestion of Clara Schumann, who pointed out that while she could play the original version, few others would be able to. There is already plenty to chew on here, for Schumann incorporates motivic links to the first movement in the new finale. Clara was lukewarm about the work (calling it "not too incomprehensible"), but Schumann himself thought highly of it. The genesis of the work is fascinating; it began with a song Schumann composed in his student days, and Schumann incorporated it into an inner voice of the slow movement. Rather like Beethoven's theater music, it does have the feel of an innovative composer's ideas being forced into an older mold. But Uchida, with her precise yet explosive style, is the perfect interpreter of the work, which seems to spill over the boundaries of sonata form with quasi-improvisatory ideas. Her performance connects the work to the rest of the output of the young Schumann in an ideal way. Also interesting are the Gesänge der Frühe, Op. 133 (Dawn Songs), one of the last things Schumann finished before going insane: they are strangely serene little miniatures. The Waldszenen themselves are full of fresh, even daring interpretations. Decca's engineering staff outdoes itself with its capture of an ideal sound environment for the work: not the usual concert hall or studio but the well-known audiophile venue the Reitstadel in the German city of Neumarkt. An essential Schumann release.© TiVo
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Schumann: Kreisleriana & Geistervariationen - Widmann: Elf Humoresken
Aaron Pilsan
Classical - Released May 26, 2023 | Alpha Classics
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Booklet
"Don’t stay locked in a single domain" is the credo of this young Austrian-Romanian pianist, Aaron Pilsan, who has been cultivating the usual repertoire alongside a passionate devotion to today’s composers. He used to be a pupil of András Schiff and Lars Vogt during his studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Before the age of thirty he had already recorded for a number of prestigious labels, such as Deutsche Grammophon, Naïve, and Alpha Classics, including the recording of this new album, where he boldly confronts Robert Schumann and Jörg Widmann.Coming after his superb version of Bach's Clavier bien tempéré (Livre I) for the same publisher, this new recording confirms the exceptional stature of a born musician, reaching a melodic pinnacle, and the depth of an endlessly imaginative keyboard. All of Schumann's unsaid words, chiaroscuro daydreams and heartfelt impulses can be experienced here. It’s a journey between exaltation and despair; on the one hand in the very distinct Kreisleriana collection and, on the other, in the rare Geistervariationen, both which seem to explore a whole new world under the fingers of this particularly inspired young man.Set as a conversation between two masterpieces, the Onze Humoresques, composed by Jörg Widmann in 2007, respond to the tormented world of Schumann with a whimsical spirit. Aaron Pilsan provides a striking interpretation, underlining the extremely strong link between the two German composers who privileged feeling and emotion over their differences in writing and era. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Schumann: Complete Symphonies
Dresdner Philharmonie
Symphonies - Released April 5, 2024 | PentaTone
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Jensen: Eroticon - Reubke: Scherzo - Schumann: Kreisleriana
Severin von Eckardstein
Classical - Released March 10, 2023 | ARTALINNA
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Booklet
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4F de Télérama
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Lieder (Berg, Schumann, Wolf, Shostakovich, Brahms)
Matthias Goerne
Classical - Released June 10, 2022 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Booklet
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Choc de Classica
Matthias Goerne not only performs at the highest level as a baritone himself, but his piano accompaniments also rank among the Champions League of classical music. For his first album, which was dedicated to Beethoven songs, he brought Jan Lisiecki on board. This was followed by the album Abendrot with melodies by Wagner and Strauss, among others, together with the young talent Seong-Jin Cho. Now we may experience the baritone in duo with the world-class Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, presenting us with a metaphysical program of Berg, Schumann, Wolf, Shostakovich and Brahms.The combination of music and poetry was brought to a climax in the form of the Romantic art song by Franz Schubert. The composers presented here build on this tradition, and despite the wide, temporal span of their publications - there are 135 years between Schumann's Dichterliebe and Shostakovich's Michelangelo Suite - the closeness and significance to the text and its authors is equally evident in all of them. Schumann's Dichterliebe is probably one of the best examples of this: the setting of Heinrich Heine's texts brings together two masters of Romanticism who could not be better interpreted by Goerne and Trifonov. Themes of impossible love and human suffering are unfolded through extremes in the monologue as well as the music, with Goerne maintaining this "strong sensitivity" throughout. In the same vein, the unspoken finds its place on the piano and takes on much more than just an accompanying role in his interpretation - as well as in art song in general. Trifonov is in direct musical dialogue with Goerne, the two artists communicating at eye level.A similar symbiosis is evident in the Michelangelo musical settings by Wolf and Shostakovich. By abandoning tonality in the latter, the connection between piano and spoken word is again reinforced on another level. A unique duo project by two contemporary greats whose paths will hopefully cross more often. © Lena Germann/Qobuz
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Schumann: Kinderszenen; Kreisleriana
Martha Argerich
Classical - Released January 1, 1984 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
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Robert Schumann: Piano Works
Llyr Williams
Classical - Released January 12, 2024 | Signum Records
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Pianist Llŷr Williams has built a following with recordings of Beethoven and Schubert, and with this double album, he plows forward into Schumann; the works on the album are mostly early, so one assumes that this is the first in a cycle. The appearance of the album on classical best-seller charts in early 2024 should encourage the folks at Signum Classics to proceed. Williams is a sober player whose style may remind listeners of a certain age of Rudolf Serkin. He has remarkable control in the larger pieces that frame the program here, the Fantasy, Op. 17, and the Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26. He certainly doesn't lack control in the smaller pieces, either. The issue is that these pieces, especially lately, have been treated, backed by Schumann's own writings and programmatic descriptions, as examples of free fantasy. It is not that Williams' playing is inexpressive, but he tends to let the fantastic in Schumann's music speak for itself. Sample the brief "Ungeduldig" ("Impatient") fourth movement of the Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, which few would call impatient. Williams' playing in the Papillons, Op. 2, is exquisitely delicate, and throughout, there is a fine sense of line. He has an approach that is unorthodox in Schumann, and that is all to the good. However, listeners should do some sampling to see how well they take to it. Producer Judith Sherman records the album well at a pair of locations at St. Paul's School and the Wyastone Estate, capturing the clarity of Williams' performances.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Schumann: The Complete Symphonies
Münchner Philharmoniker
Symphonies - Released June 3, 2022 | harmonia mundi
Hi-Res
Booklet
Four symphonies were enough for Robert Schumann to leave his mark. Without allowing himself to be overawed by Beethoven’s shadow, he succeeded from the outset in coining a highly personal idiom, with an astonishing combination of formal rigour and freedom of inspiration. Pablo Heras-Casado and the Münchner Philharmoniker offer their interpretation of this corpus, more mysterious than it appears, which tells of its composer’s passionate and tormented soul. © harmonia mundi
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Schumann : Cello Concerto - Piano Trio No 1
Jean-Guihen Queyras
Classical - Released April 1, 2016 | harmonia mundi
Hi-Res
Booklet
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4 étoiles Classica
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