BaL 7.03.15 - Clara Schumann: Piano Trio in G minor Op. 17

[Barbirollians]

I only know the Dartington recording enterprisingly coupled with Fanny M's trio - seems very good to me .

[EdgeleyRob]

I only know the Dartington recording enterprisingly coupled with Fanny M's trio - seems very good to me .

A lovely cd,made up my mind what to listen to next.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Call me old-fashioned but I feel it's a funny old world when a work I've never heard live (maybe never full stop) fields over a dozen recordings, and whose composer featured until quite recently far more as a pianist and as Robert's wife and inspiration in most music histories. It's not exactly a famous masterpiece, which is odd when the original purpose of BaL was to help listeners buy a good, even 'the best', recording of such. And as noted elsewhere, e.g. on the thread for tomorrow's BaL on D959, there are still a fair few masterpieces even among the Viennese classics awaiting their first appearance

I suppose this choice may be in response to the criticism that a BaL on many such works gets overloaded, becomes skimpy, in the face of 100+ versions in contention on the starting line (though Sir NK's recent one on the Eroica seems to have shown that such a task is not quite impossible).

I shall approach this C. Schumann BaL rather in the spirit of a 'Talking about Music' programme, hoping to be persuaded that Clara is fully worthy of her new higher profile and that this work demands admission to at least the upper slopes, if not the summit, of our musical Mt Olympus The LMP shelves support a few of her works, accidentally acquired eg on BBC MM discs, but she is yet to really grab my ear.

[Just attempted a few checks on Mrs S's progression up the lower Olympian slopes. Was surprised that she was in the very first edition of the Penguin Guide (1975) with 2 LPs. One of these, a Ponti Vox STGBY piano recital, is in the '73 EMG Guide (there was nothing in the '68). In my wee collection of Gramophone Classical Record Catalogues Dec 71 listed no works by her at all, Mar 73 has 5 (4 of them on the aforementioned Ponti LP), Sep75 8 (including the Piano Trio on another Vox STBY by the Clara Wieck Trio, this title in itself a sign that her star was again in the ascendant), Jun78 8, Mar79 9, Jun78 8, Mar81 7. But in Sep83 she's down to 3 again, owing to the demise of the Vox label in the UK, though the Beaux Arts have by now set their weighty seal on the piano trio. In Dec84 even that has gone and she's down to just 2 piano pieces. She's gone again completely from the Sep86

That's my last of the Gramophone catalogues, but by the first edition of the successor R.E.D. Classical Collector Catalogue (Nov 95) she's exploded to 27 works including the A minor piano concerto, two chamber works including the trio (by the Dartingtons) and 2 vocal opuses. So her climb seems very directly linked to the arrival of the CD medium, as perhaps we might have anticipated.

After that my run of 'complete' catalogues ceases. Not sure how many editions the R.E.D. managed before the size of task, and the internet, made the task impossible. Being a collector was so much simpler before then...and cheaper...]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Call me old-fashioned but I feel it's a funny old world when a work I've never heard live (maybe never full stop) fields over a dozen recordings, and whose composer featured until quite recently far more as a pianist and as Robert's wife and inspiration in most music histories. It's not exactly a famous masterpiece, which is odd when the original purpose of BaL was to help listeners buy a good, even 'the best', recording of such. And as noted elsewhere, e.g. on the thread for tomorrow's BaL on D959, there are still a fair few masterpieces even among the Viennese classics awaiting their first appearance

I suppose this choice may be in response to the criticism that a BaL on many such works gets overloaded, becomes skimpy, in the face of 100+ versions in contention on the starting line (though Sir NK's recent one on the Eroica seems to have shown that such a task is not quite impossible).

That's my last of the Gramophone catalogues, but by the first edition of the successor R.E.D. Classical Collector Catalogue (Nov 95) she's exploded to 27 works including the A minor piano concerto, two chamber works including the trio (by the Dartingtons) and 2 vocal opuses. So her climb seems very directly linked to the arrival of the CD medium, as perhaps we might have anticipated.

Couldn't very similar comments have been made about Biber, LMP?

[Roehre]

Call me old-fashioned but I feel it's a funny old world when a work I've never heard live (maybe never full stop) fields over a dozen recordings, and whose composer featured until quite recently far more as a pianist and as Robert's wife and inspiration in most music histories. It's not exactly a famous masterpiece, which is odd when the original purpose of BaL was to help listeners buy a good, even 'the best', recording of such. And as noted elsewhere, e.g. on the thread for tomorrow's BaL on D959, there are still a fair few masterpieces even among the Viennese classics awaiting their first appearance....

I am afraid you answered your question of "Why this Clara Schumann Trio in BaL?" yourself.

The fact that she's only quite recently shown up as more than the performing wife of the composer doesn't mean that her works are not worth listening to or are only minor works even.

What's BaL for?
To add an umpteenth recording of a work to your collection, making the number of recording umpteen-plus-one?
Or to discover aspects you might have overheard otherwise?
A relatively unknown work IMVHO certainly adds to the "discovery aspects".

As far as the number of recordings listed by Alpensinfonie is concerned: if that's a measure then we shouldn't have had a Bal on Palestrina either. Certainly a minor composer according to this view.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I am afraid you answered your question of "Why this Clara Schumann Trio in BaL?" yourself.

The fact that she's only quite recently shown up as more than the performing wife of the composer doesn't mean that her works are not worth listening to or are only minor works even.

What's BaL for?
To add an umpteenth recording of a work to your collection, making the number of recording umpteen-plus-one?
Or to discover aspects you might have overheard otherwise?
A relatively unknown work IMVHO certainly adds to the "discovery aspects".

As far as the number of recordings listed by Alpensinfonie is concerned: if that's a measure then we shouldn't have had a Bal on Palestrina either. Certainly a minor composer according to this view.

From the LMP tactical HQ, highest priority:


My post was NOT a declaration of war, more a meditation on the passage of 40+ years as a classical music enthusiast, record collector and BaL listener.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

From the LMP tactical HQ, highest priority:


My post was NOT a declaration of war, more a meditation on the passage of 40+ years as a classical music enthusiast, record collector and BaL listener.

[Roehre]

From the LMP tactical HQ, highest priority:


My post was NOT a declaration of war, more a meditation on the passage of 40+ years as a classical music enthusiast, record collector and BaL listener.

Please be assured that I did not assume it was

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My post was NOT a declaration of war, more a meditation on the passage of 40+ years as a classical music enthusiast, record collector and BaL listener.

- indeed, and my reply was in the same spirit. The range of Music (and Musics) so readily available to us in comparison with that of forty years ago is one of the great advances in culture: composers (and performers) blasted aside by traditional ideas of "the canon" have been made available to listeners who realize that the way many of these figures have been so casually dismissed in the past is grossly unfair.

[LeMartinPecheur]

- indeed, and my reply was in the same spirit. The range of Music (and Musics) so readily available to us in comparison with that of forty years ago is one of the great advances in culture: composers (and performers) blasted aside by traditional ideas of "the canon" have been made available to listeners who realize that the way many of these figures have been so casually dismissed in the past is grossly unfair.

fhg: your mention of Biber sets me thinking along paths where I may need a lot more of these thingies But here goes...

With him I recall a feeling among scholars in the early days of his 'rehabilitation' that here really was an undiscovered genius, and that the Mystery Sonatas, for example, are true masterworks. Comparisons with the JSB sonatas and partitas didn't blow them away, so they must be right up there. (Sort of thing...)

That's perhaps what worries me a tad with Clara S. She is of course a central figure in the "Women composers are great too" campaign (the name of Diana Ambache comes immediately to mind). We're immediately into deep water if we start to ask "How great? PROVE that [female composer QQQQ] is as good as [male composers X, Y and Z]", "She really deserves my attention" or whatever. The existence of a 'political' agenda, however well-merited, makes it difficult to listen with the same set of ears as to a 'new oldie' like Biber. IMO of course. And again I tentatively ask, Which is the CS masterwork that books her ticket on the steep Mt Olympus rack-railway? I shall try to listen to the BaL with open ears, hoping to be persuaded, though alas it'll have to be the i-player as I'm St Elsewhere next Saturday

Don't get me wrong, I'm not pushing a 'Male Composers Really Are Better' agenda (AFAIK!),and have my own list of women composers whom I definitely seek out. But the wider feminist campaign does make evaluations difficult I find.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

We "prove" the greatness of any composer by playing the Music they've written and making our judgements based on what we hear and what we get from it. Genders (and agendas ) are irrelevant in such a process of assessment - although very important as to what we do with such assessments.

[EdgeleyRob]

- indeed, and my reply was in the same spirit. The range of Music (and Musics) so readily available to us in comparison with that of forty years ago is one of the great advances in culture: composers (and performers) blasted aside by traditional ideas of "the canon" have been made available to listeners who realize that the way many of these figures have been so casually dismissed in the past is grossly unfair.

Agreed ferney.
I often find that many of the lesser known composers are just as interesting as the established great masters,and sometimes even more so.

[Roehre]

Agreed ferney.
I often find that many of the lesser known composers are just as interesting as the established great masters,and sometimes even more so.

Completely my experience - and for the record (in case someone might not have noticed yet ) I fundamentally don't believe in either hero-composers-like-god-himself (as e.g. Beethoven was worshipped upto well in the 1970s) or hero-conductors-making-so-called-great-works-even-greater (often implying that music making in the past was better).

[EdgeleyRob]

Completely my experience - and for the record (in case someone might not have noticed yet ) I fundamentally don't believe in either hero-composers-like-god-himself (as e.g. Beethoven was worshipped upto well in the 1970s) or hero-conductors-making-so-called-great-works-even-greater (often implying that music making in the past was better).

Who decided which composers became great masters and which ones were cast aside?

[gurnemanz]

Who decided which composers became great masters and which ones were cast aside?

Either cast aside or branded in Germany as "Kleinmeister", eg such as Hummel, Moscheles and Kalkbrenner.