BaL 30.09.23 - Schumann: Piano Quartet in E flat

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

10.30 a.m.
Building a Library: Marina Frolova-Walker chooses her favourite version of Schumann's Piano Quartet in E flat.
Robert Schumann composed his E-flat Piano Quartet in 1842 for piano, violin, viola and cello. That year is often called Schumann's "Year of Chamber Music" because, in a stretch of nearly unbroken intensity, he produced a string of chamber music masterpieces. The Piano Quartet was the last of the series, written within a few weeks. Like the Piano Quintet, the Piano Quartet was written with his wife Clara in mind. She described the quartet in her diary as a "beautiful work, so youthful and fresh, as if it were his first". The piece shows the extroverted, exuberant side of the composer's creative genius.

Available recordings:-
0.30 a
Ames Piano Quartet
Leif Ove Andsnes ...
Martha Argerich, Gautier Capuçon, Renaud Capuçon, Lyda Chen
Atlantis Ensemble *
Emanuel Ax, Vesko Eschkenazy, Henk Rubingh, Gregor Horsch
Emanuel Ax, Donald Wallerstein, Atar Arad, Paul Katz *
Emanuel Ax, Isaac Stern, Jaime Laredo, Yo-Yo Ma
Pierre Barbizet, Quatuor Parrenin
Jozef de Beenhouwer, Panocha Quartet *
Benvenue Fortepiano Trio, Adam LaMotte
Berlin Piano Quartet *
Richard Burnett, Fitzwilliam String Quartet
Dvořák Piano Quartet
Emerson String Quartet...
Florestan Trio, Thomas Riebl *
Christophe Gaugue, Trio Wanderer (SACD)
Glenn Gould, Claus Adam, Raphael Hillyer, Robert Mann *
Margarita Hohenrieder, Gewandhaus Quartet
Wu Han, Daniel Hope, David Finckel, Paul Neubauer *
Mieczyslaw Horszowski, Alexander Schneider, Milton Katims, Frank Miller *
Jutland Ensemble
Leipzig Piano Quartet
Mariani Piano Quartet
Stéphane De May, Philippe Koch, Pierre-Henri Xuereb, Luc Tooten
Alexander Melnikov, Jerusalem Quartet *
Michelangelo Piano Quartet
Hortense Monath, Rudolf Kolisch, Eugene Lehner, Benar Heifetz *
Nils Anders Mortensen, Engegård Quartet
Mozart Piano Quartet (SACD)
Munich Piano Trio, Tilo Widenmeyer
Elly Ney, Florizel von Reuter, Walter Trampler, Ludwig Hoelscher *
Peter Orth, Jens Oppermann, Stewart Eaton, Andreas Arndt *
Peter Orth, Auryn Quartet
Menahem Pressler, Isidore Cohen, Samuel Rhodes, Bernard Greenhouse
Menahem Pressler, Emerson String Quartet *
André Previn, Heiichiro Ohyama, Young Uck Kim, Gary Hoffman
Pro Arte Piano Quartet*
Quartetto Klimt *
Quartetto Nuove Vie *
Quatuor Schumann
Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky, Dora Schwarzberg, Nobuko Imai, Mischa Maisky *
Eric Le Sage, Gordan Nikolitch, Lise Bertaud, François Salque
Ragna Schirmer, Iason Keramidis, Julien Heichelbech, Benedict Klöckner
Schubert Ensemble of London
Yevgeny Sudbin , Hrachya Avanesyan, Boris Brovtsyn, Alexander Chaushian, Diemut Poppen (SACD)
Yevgeny Sudbin, Hrachya Avanesyan, Diemut Poppen, Alexander Chaushian (SACD)
Swiss Chamber Soloists *
Trio Parnassus, Hariolf Schlichtig (SACD)
Trio di Trieste, Piero Farulli *
Xiayin Wang, Fine Arts Quartet

(* = download only)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This isn’t a work I know, so I’ll be listening. (I’ve played in the Quintet, which is very fine, so I’m optimistic.)

[Pulcinella]

This isn’t a work I know, so I’ll be listening. (I’ve played in the Quintet, which is very fine, so I’m optimistic.)

Likewise, though I find I have a recording on a BBC MM CD of a 2013 performance in New York (Vol 22, No 7) by Juho Pohjonen, Erin Keefe, Paul Neubauer, and Narek Hakhnazaryan, which I've dug out to listen to before Saturday.

[makropulos]

I'm enormously fond of this piece and have a few recordings of it. One which doesn't appear in your list which is worth hearing is Claire-Marie Le Guay and the Mandelring Quartet on Audite.

Another much older one is Jörg Demus with the Barylli Quartet on Westminster (reissued on CD by – I think – MCA – and more recently by Universal in the wonderful South Korean box of the Westminster Chamber Music Collection which I bought from Presto when they had a few imported copies.

[Bryn]

I'm enormously fond of this piece and have a few recordings of it. One which doesn't appear in your list which is worth hearing is Claire-Marie Le Guay and the Mandelring Quartet on Audite.

Another much older one is Jörg Demus with the Barylli Quartet on Westminster (reissued on CD by – I think – MCA – and more recently by Universal in the wonderful South Korean box of the Westminster Chamber Music Collection which I bought from Presto when they had a few imported copies.

I have that 1955 recording in the Scribendum "The Art of Barilli Quartet" boxed set. How relatively good or bad the digital remastering is, I am not in a position to compare.

[neiltingley]

I love Glenn Gould with the Julliard's recording. Gould and the quartet fell out, it's not clear what about.

"Schumann's Piano Quartet Op. 47 is much less unorthodox interpretatively than the Brahms Quintet, and the much clearer 1968 studio recording is better balanced and more sharply focused. Amazingly, any unpleasantness between Gould and the three members of the Juilliard Quartet or disenchantment with the project itself is imperceptible in the performance. The unity of ensemble in the second movement and the warmth and sympathetic response to Schumann's exquisitely scored slow movement are delightful." (Gramophone Magazine)

[Pulcinella]

The liner notes of the BBC MM release recount an occasion on New Year's Day 1846, when the Mendelssohns invited the Schumanns round for a soirée at which this piece was performed, with Clara on the piano and Felix on the viola.
Quite an impressive start to the year, I'd say.

[Retune]

Is this the first time the 'winner' has been obscure enough to be missed in the list of available recordings? Marina Frolova-Walker chose The Festival Quartet, recorded on RCA Living Stereo in 1959:

Szymon Goldberg, Violin
William Primrose, Viola
Nikolai Graudan, Cello
Victor Babin, Piano

If the Discogs list is complete, the only CD release seems to have been as part of the Living Stereo megabox, but it's available as a download.

I think I only have Argerich in this, which I must now go and listen to - it's an attractive piece.

[richardfinegold]

Is this the first time the 'winner' has been obscure enough to be missed in the list of available recordings? Marina Frolova-Walker chose The Festival Quartet, recorded on RCA Living Stereo in 1959:

Szymon Goldberg, Violin
William Primrose, Viola
Nikolai Graudan, Cello
Victor Babin, Piano

If the Discogs list is complete, the only CD release seems to have been as part of the Living Stereo megabox, but it's available as a download.

I think I only have Argerich in this, which I must now go and listen to - it's an attractive piece.

I have that megabox but I don’t think I played disc. Will dig it out. However it is available on Apple Music and I just started listening to it with AirPlay.
Did the Pressler/Emerson recording get a mention?

[Cockney Sparrow]

Reference to Living Stereo Box Set below - per John Fowler's review on Amazon (to whom I am indebted to many a listing of the contents of boxes where there is no other accessible information):

Not to be confused with:
Living Stereo 60 CD Collection
or
Living Stereo 60 CD Collection Vol. 2
The earlier boxes were devoted to best-selling LPs from the 1950s and '60s
(lots of Heifetz, Rubinstein and Cliburn)

The new one is what's left over: odds and ends from RCA's "Living Stereo" catalog.
Most of this is new to CD.
No other organizing principle.

ADDED ON EDIT : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Ster.../dp/B01HU7HO3Q

The Festival Quartet was not a string quartet.
It was an all-star Piano Quartet (with a limited repertoire).
The pianist was Victor Babin, best known as half the two-piano team of Vronsky & Babin (two CDs in this box).
Violinist Szymon Goldberg and cellist Nicolai Graudan had been principal players in the Berlin Philharmonic under Furtwangler.
William Primrose was principal viola in the NBC Symphony under Toscanini.
Piano Quartets of Beethoven, Brahms (all three), Schumann and Schubert's "Trout" Quintet.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I love Glenn Gould with the Julliard's recording. Gould and the quartet fell out, it's not clear what about.

"Schumann's Piano Quartet Op. 47 is much less unorthodox interpretatively than the Brahms Quintet, and the much clearer 1968 studio recording is better balanced and more sharply focused. Amazingly, any unpleasantness between Gould and the three members of the Juilliard Quartet or disenchantment with the project itself is imperceptible in the performance. The unity of ensemble in the second movement and the warmth and sympathetic response to Schumann's exquisitely scored slow movement are delightful." (Gramophone Magazine)

For me Gould’s staccato in the excerpt played was just too much,
But my word the string playing of the Festival Quartet in the Andante slow movement. Absolutely breathtaking and genuinely cantabile . That cellist …lovely warm sound. That tune sounds like nothing else in Schumann - the work of a master.
Not surprised they came out on top as the preferred version .

[Bryn]

Reference to Living Stereo Box Set below - per John Fowler's review on Amazon (to whom I am indebted to many a listing of the contents of boxes where there is no other accessible information):

Not to be confused with:
Living Stereo 60 CD Collection
or
Living Stereo 60 CD Collection Vol. 2
The earlier boxes were devoted to best-selling LPs from the 1950s and '60s
(lots of Heifetz, Rubinstein and Cliburn)

The new one is what's left over: odds and ends from RCA's "Living Stereo" catalog.
Most of this is new to CD.
No other organizing principle.

ADDED ON EDIT : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Ster.../dp/B01HU7HO3Q

The Festival Quartet was not a string quartet.
It was an all-star Piano Quartet (with a limited repertoire).
The pianist was Victor Babin, best known as half the two-piano team of Vronsky & Babin (two CDs in this box).
Violinist Szymon Goldberg and cellist Nicolai Graudan had been principal players in the Berlin Philharmonic under Furtwangler.
William Primrose was principal viola in the NBC Symphony under Toscanini.
Piano Quartets of Beethoven, Brahms (all three), Schumann and Schubert's "Trout" Quintet.

Thanks for the reminder. Disc 56 will be spun, rather than relying on BBC Sounds tomorrow night. Fortunately, I purchased the set 4 years ago. Looks like it is no longer easily available.

[gurnemanz]

I've just listened to the Festival Quartet version on Spotify and loved it. Vivid sound and playing. I'm very grateful for having it drawn to my attention but I won't need to download it. I tend not to use the term "library recording" but in this case the benchmark Beaux Arts version which I have had on a Philips Duo twofer for many years would come into that category.

[edashtav]

For me Gould’s staccato in the excerpt played was just too much,
But my word the string playing of the Festival Quartet in the Andante slow movement. Absolutely breathtaking and genuinely cantabile . That cellist …lovely warm sound. That tune sounds like nothing else in Schumann - the work of a master.
Not surprised they came out on top as the preferred version .

The breadth and depth of Marina's erudition brought a delight from the past back into sight. Age cannot wither class. A wonderful BaL.

[Darloboy]

Is this the first time the 'winner' has been obscure enough to be missed in the list of available recordings? Marina Frolova-Walker chose The Festival Quartet, recorded on RCA Living Stereo in 1959:

Szymon Goldberg, Violin
William Primrose, Viola
Nikolai Graudan, Cello
Victor Babin, Piano

If the Discogs list is complete, the only CD release seems to have been as part of the Living Stereo megabox, but it's available as a download.

I think I only have Argerich in this, which I must now go and listen to - it's an attractive piece.

Personally, if a work can only be obtained as a download, I don't consider it to be "available".