Schumann Piano Concerto - wasn't there a BAL quite recently ?

[Barbirollians]

I thought there was - a twofer with that chap whose first name is Kenneth ?

I cannot find it in our BAL section . Have I imagined it ? I was just interested to know as I have been immensely taken with the Brendel LSO Abbado recording I found in a charity shop.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Eight years ago, Barbs:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sq429

(In other words, pre-Forum - possibly on the BBC Messageboards archive?)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Indeed it was a "twofer" - but between Harriet Smith and Kenneth Hamilton! (Unless Noddy McGregor also chirruped along, in which case it was a "threefer".) No details of the discussion via the R3/Record Review website, but the "Consensus Recommendations" were:

1) Andreas Staier (fortepiano) / Orchestre des Champs Elysees / Philippe Herreweghe (conductor)

c/w SCHUMANN: Cello Concerto in A minor Op 129
Christophe Coin (cello) / Orchestre des Champs Elysees / Philippe Herreweghe (conductor)
Harmonia Mundi HMA1951731 (CD, budget)

2)Walter Gieseking (piano) / Dresden State Orchestra / Karl Bohm (conductor)

c/w FRANCK: Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra M46*; GRIEG: Piano Concerto in A minor Op 16^
*London Philharmonic Orchestra / Henry Wood (conductor)
^ Berlin State Opera Orchestra / Hans Rosbaud (conductor)
Naxos 8111110 (CD, budget)

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/transcripts/BAL_1999-2015.pdf

[cloughie]

Indeed it was a "twofer" - but between Harriet Smith and Kenneth Wilkinson! (Unless Noddy McGregor also chirruped along, in which case it was a "threefer".) No details of the discussion via the R3/Record Review website, but the "Consensus Recommendations" were:

1) Andreas Staier (fortepiano) / Orchestre des Champs Elysees / Philippe Herreweghe (conductor)

c/w SCHUMANN: Cello Concerto in A minor Op 129
Christophe Coin (cello) / Orchestre des Champs Elysees / Philippe Herreweghe (conductor)
Harmonia Mundi HMA1951731 (CD, budget)

2)Walter Gieseking (piano) / Dresden State Orchestra / Karl Bohm (conductor)

c/w FRANCK: Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra M46*; GRIEG: Piano Concerto in A minor Op 16^
*London Philharmonic Orchestra / Henry Wood (conductor)
^ Berlin State Opera Orchestra / Hans Rosbaud (conductor)
Naxos 8111110 (CD, budget)

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/tr..._1999-2015.pdf

I'm sure they had their reasons but seems an odd concencensus bearing in mind the gem laden catalogue of alternatives.

I'm sure that an Alpie list would yield some great choices!

[Alison]

I was thinking Kenneth Hamilton!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I was thinking Kenneth Hamilton!

Whooops! That is the correct surname - Julie Amended.

[Nick Armstrong]

Julie Amended.

She gets everywhere, old Julie!

Must introduce her to Bbm some day

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm sure they had their reasons but seems an odd concencensus bearing in mind the gem laden catalogue of alternatives.

The previous week, Harriet Smith and Richard Wigmore jointly discussed Schumann's Dichterliebe (June 2010 was the Schumann bicentenary) and each came up with five recommendations; none of the choices appeared in both lists! (They both pointed to a DF-D recording: Smith the one with Demus, Wigmore that with Eschenbach. )

[cloughie]

Whooops! That is the correct surname - Julie Amended.

Wasn't Kenneth Wilkinson a Decca engineer, responsible for many a fine recording on that label in the 60s?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

She gets everywhere, old Julie!
Must introduce her to Bbm some day

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Wasn't Kenneth Wilkinson a Decca engineer, responsible for many a fine recording on that label in the 60s?

[jayne lee wilson]

Wasn't Kenneth Wilkinson a Decca engineer, responsible for many a fine recording on that label in the 60s?

Yes - and because Richard Itter hired Decca to produce his own label's recordings, engineer behind many Lyrita issues too.
Some of his best work appears on the extraordinary Chesky CD transfers made from the Readers' Digest Classical series of the 1960s, not least the RPO/Rene Leibowitz Beethoven cycle and the RPO/Reiner Brahms 4th.

Despite an unquenchable passion for Schumann (just started listening to the lovely WDR/Holliger (Audite) series again...), I thought the Piano Concerto was all but over for me (early over-exposure), until I heard the wonderful Melnikov 1837 Erard fortepiano recording in this HM series...

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/search?q=schumann+heras-casado&i=boutique

[Barbirollians]

Funnily enough I remembered that we were camping in North Yorkshire when I heard it but I cannot believe it is that long ago.

[Hornspieler]

Sorry to stray from this subject, but I cannot resist printing a little quote regarding the Schumann Piano Concerto; from my little stocking filler "Bravo Maestro"

PM me if you would like a copy.

THE ENTHUSIASTIC AMATEUR


“The amateur musician hopes that he will get everything right. The professional prays that he will get nothing wrong. That is the essential difference between the two.”
Arthur Davison CBE, Conductor and Violinist

Without the enthusiasm of amateur musicians, professionals would be hard put to survive.
They attend concerts and urge their neighbours to accompany them. They provide a lot
of paid employment, engaging professionals to add strength (or missing instrumentalists) to
their own performances. They engage entire orchestras to play for their choral society concerts
and they form music clubs which provide a lot of work for small ensembles and soloists. Just as in golf or tennis, everybody starts as an amateur -- the professional is privileged to be paid for doing what he would wish to be doing anyway. The stories and anecdotes in this chapter are included, not to deride or mock, but as an affectionate tribute to the enthusiasm and joy in music which is in every amateur and, sadly, is not always found among hardened professionals.

This is a typical example -- a trip to the Channel Islands to play with the local orchestra.
A friend who played the clarinet arranged that the two of us should go over to play two concerts.
It was a nice engagement. We were to fly over, stay with my colleague's father, who played
the ´cello, and stay on afterwards for a few days to see the sights and maybe give a couple
of lessons. The piano soloist travelled over on the same aircraft.

The conductor was a little Italian music master who was so short that only the top of his head
and his right arm (wielding a baton almost as long as himself) could be seen over the top of
the rostrum. The first oboe `gave the A' and I thought for a moment that someone had trodden
on the cat. Perhaps he sensed that I was staring at his reed, which looked like a worn out
child's paint brush, because he turned round in his seat and said “It's a wonderful reed,
this. Do you know, I've had this reed for eleven years! “

The double bass player (the local policeman) had probably the only three-stringed bass still in
existence. When the conductor told him that a certain note was flat, he replied “It can't be,
Mr. Conductor. It's my open string!”

We started to rehearse the Schumann Piano Concerto. The slow opening went quite well, but
when we reached the Allegretto 2/2 section, where the tune is taken by the clarinet with
the soloist accompanying, they took off at the usual tempo and it soon became obvious that
they were leaving the rest of the orchestra some distance behind, so the soloist stopped and
said, with great diplomacy, “Don't you think, Mr. S______ that we might, with effect, take
this passage a little bit slower?”, to which the conductor replied,

“But of course! As a madder of fact, I usually beat thees in four, but ze clarinet went so fast I 'ad to beat it in two.”

Now back to the subject!


HS

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

When the conductor told him that a certain note was flat, he replied “It can't be, Mr. Conductor. It's my open string!”