Robert Schumann

Cellist Sol Gabetta and her almost-favourite pianist, Bertrand Chamayou, focus here on Schumann's all too rare repertoire for cello and piano. And once again, none of these pieces are intended a priori for cello, even though the original scores do propose the instrument as a possible alternative to the clarinet in Fantasy Pieces or the horn in Adagio and Allegro. It was only with Five Pieces in Folk Style that Schumann immediately thought of the cello! Here, Chamayou plays on a Viennese fortepiano by Streicher, dated from 1847 - three or four years after the composition of these three works. The Concerto for cello is accompanied by the Basel Chamber Orchestra, who also play on instruments from the romantic era, giving a more hushed yet incisive sound for the attacks. There’s more of an emphasis on the woodwind section as well, in contrast to the over-inflated string ensemble that so many modern orchestras offer up. © SM/Qobuz

Looking at the program here, you may not have been aware that Robert Schumann contributed so many works to the cello repertory. He didn't; the two central works were originally written for other instruments and are presented here in versions for cello and piano. Nevertheless, there is no hint of the program being scraped together. This is because Argentine cellist Sol Gabetta has assembled a group of mostly late Schumann works (the Fantasy Pieces, Op. 73, might be called transitional) that aren't terribly common, probably have never been heard together before, and offer all kinds of insight into the late Schumann style that heavily influenced the young Brahms. The contrapuntally dense Konzertstück für Cello und Orchester, Op. 129, generally rendered as Cello concerto in English, was one such work; it's a thorny work that Schumann's contemporaries wouldn't touch, but Brahms would later write concertos that would similarly be accused of not favoring the soloist enough, but that continued to rethink the concerto form. The work gets a fine performance here, influenced by historical-instrument readings, from Gabetta and the Kammerorchester Basel under Gabetta's frequent collaborator Giovanni Antonini. Sample the first movement for an idea of the clarity they bring to Schumann's gnarly textures. Of course, another periodic aspect of the Brahms style was an interest in folk-like melodies, and here that's anticipated by a very rarely heard Schumann work, the Fünf Stücke im Volkston, Op. 102 (Five Pieces in Folk Style). This one is worth the price on its own; the five works move progressively away from folk models, and really the work is unlike anything else in the repertory. The two middle works are played well enough by the cello, and all in all this is a fine, even revelatory Schumann recital even if the cello concerto, recorded two years earlier than the other pieces, seems to inhabit a different sonic world.

Very different from Schubert’s Lieder, which are chants according to German “popular” tradition (usually strophic) with a musical accompaniment subservient to the singing (taking nothing away from their incredible genius!), Schumann’s are, to use Christian Gerhaher’s words, “lyrical dramaturgy”; miniature operas in which the piano and vocals are equal in content. This doesn’t explain why Schumann’s Lieder are so rarely performed in concert, with the exception of some well-worn cycles (normally Myrten, Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und –leben). Gerhaher and his pianist Gerold Huber pick works from the genre’s ample repertoire that have almost never been performed in concert. Only three cycles date back to the “Liederyear” of 1840 (incidentally the year of his marriage to Clara Wieck), while the others are from the composer’s last years, beyond 1850, and are full of nostalgia… This is far from the dishevelled romanticism of his early years, the mood is dark and the discourse broken up into small brushstrokes. The contrast from one era to the other is striking. Gerhaher and Huber perform these surprising marvels brilliantly. © SM/Qobuz

Since it was formed in 2007, the Stradivari Quartet has built up an enviable international reputation for itself both through its concerts and recordings. Throughout all of this it has remained in close contact with its audiences, who often follow the players as a loyal and enthusiastic fan base. The Stradivari Quartet is undoubtedly one of the most interesting ensembles currently before the public. All four members are additionally engaged in other artistic activities. The Quartet gives around forty concerts a year in Switzerland and throughout the world and has appeared at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art etc. The Stradivari Quartet performs a wide range of music, while concentrating increasingly on major cycles of works by a single composer and generally spread out over an entire season. March 2017 was Schumann’s turn… The composer’s earliest plans to tackle the ne plus ultra of chamber music date back to 1838, when he wrote to Clara: “I’m looking forward to the quartets as the piano is becoming too limiting for me; it’s especially strange that I write almost everything in canon form and that it isn’t until afterwards that I discover the voices that echo the melodic line, often in inversions, retrograde rhythms etc.” Although Schumann completed the String Quartets Op. 41 in a matter of barely two months in 1842, they had been preceded by a lengthy gestational process. He gained access to the medium by studying the classics: Beethoven and Mendelssohn, Haydn, Mozart and Schubert. It is remarkable, though, that he never tackled the string quartet again after 1842. © SM/Qobuz