BaL 29.03.25 - Schumann: Carnaval

[Pulcinella]

1500
Lucy Parham chooses her favourite recording of Schumann's Carnaval

Presto listing here:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/works/59423--schumann-carnaval-op-9/browse

The BBC MM CD offering (Volume 20, Number 13) is with Claudio Arrau, recorded in London (no more information given) on 19 June 1961.

Recommended recording:
Mitsuko Uchida
Philips 4758260

[smittims]

This is a work that has been excwptionally well-served on disc. Even on 78s there was Rachmaninov, Myra Hess and the young Claudio Arrau, all excellent. Its also a work Michelangeli excelled in and recorded at least three times I think, including 'live' versions. Very difficul to find just one 'best ' version as it's so open to different equally valid interpretations.

I don't know Lucy Parham. Lets hope her views on pianists are less eccentric than David Owen Norris' have been.

[gradus]

LP has pontificated before and as a fine pianist herself will be an interesting reviewer.
I'm looking forward to this one as it is one of my favourite Schumann pieces. As you say so many different ways with it I can only wish her good luck!

[gurnemanz]

One of my favourite works going back and one that first helped me to start enjoying classical music many decades ago - Michelangeli, I think. The first CD I bought was Barenboim and I have acquired a few more recordings along the way. I would find it hard to single one out. If arm-twisted, Cortot 1928

Vladimir Ashkenazy
Emil Gilels
Daniel Barenboim
Jörg Demus
Wilhelm Kempff
Annie Fischer
Alfred Cortot
Vladimir Sofronitzky
Sergei Rachmaninov
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli
Eric Le Sage
Sergio Fiorentino
Artur Rubinstein

[Barbirollians]

She likes bland understated performances judging by her past BALs . Not one of my favourite reviewers since she dismissed Richter’s Rachmaninov 2 .

[Keraulophone]

Michelangeli's piano recital at the RFH in March 1957 is deservedly feted as one of the finest ever recorded. Gramophone describes his performance of Carnaval therein as 'a choice gallery of aural sculpture, whether in the minutely calculated responses of “Pierrot”, the teasing rubato of “Coquette”, the energy and attack of “Papillons”, the effortless flow of “Chopin” or the ecstatic lingerings in “Aveu”.'

The Testament CDs include an intriguing rehearsal excerpt, during which there is some conversation. It could have been partly concerning the organ shutters (not the swell boxes!), whether he wanted them open or closed, thus affecting the acoustic. He must have had a fastidious ear.

[smittims]

Those two Cds were also in a 14-CD Warner box of 2015, which may be more available. I see the recital was recorded 'live' by Victor Olof and Nevile Boyling, so it was clearly a regular HMV recording. I don't know if it was issued at the time. Does anyone know?

His 1975 recording,which was issued in an HMV LP , contains some eccentric tempi, notably in Promenade,where he holds the last chord for ten seconds ( on the Warner CD, but longer on the orignal LP, if I recall correctly)

[silvestrione]

Curious that some pianists especially associated with Schumann nevertheless did not play Carnival: Richter, Pollini, Brendel, Horowitz, Why don't they like it, I wonder...
(I may be corrected here of course!)

[Ein Heldenleben]

Curious that some pianists especially associated with Schumann nevertheless did not play Carnival: Richter, Pollini, Brendel, Horowitz, Why don't they like it, I wonder...
(I may be corrected here of course!)

They probably listened to the Rachmaninov recording and thought what’s the point ?
Seriously it’s not scheduled in recitals much either.
I wonder if it falls into the category of being much more demanding to learn than the end result sounds.

[gradus]

I've never heard the Rachmaninov recording, is it widely available?

[Wolfram]

I have Hamelin and Uchida - who plays Sphinxes - but my favourite is Annie Fischer, who gets all the manic capriciousness whilst still making it all hang together as one coherent piece; each episode flows seamlessly from one to the other.

[smittims]

I last saw Rachmaninov's recording on Naxos Historical 8.112020, a Ward Marston remastering ,better, I think,than the RCA one.

I endorse Wolfram's praise for Annie Fischer, who seems to me to be more inside the spirit of the music even than Ashkenazy or Mitsuko, excellent though they are.

[HighlandDougie]

my favourite is Annie Fischer, who gets all the manic capriciousness whilst still making it all hang together as one coherent piece; each episode flows seamlessly from one to the other.

It took me a long time to appreciate Schumann's piano oeuvre (my superficial reaction to it tended to the, "too many notes, not enough music") but Wolfram's recommendation has had me dig out the EMI Annie Fischer box and spend almost 75 minutes enjoying her playing of Carnaval, Kinderszenen and Kreisleriana. I'm still not sure that Carnaval quite matches the heights of Kreisleriana but will listen with interest. Hard to imagine many pianists coming near to Fischer's performance.

[Barbirollians]

Annie Fischer definitely at the top of the tree for me - I also have Barenbpim. Kissin and Freddy Kempf .

The recording I am fondest of though is Solomon on Testament.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I've never heard the Rachmaninov recording, is it widely available?

It’s on the Philips Great Pianists double album devoted to SR. I think it’s one of his finest recordings and thus one of the very finest recordings of a Romantic work in the entire recorded piano repertoire. If only he’d recorded more…

Jeremy Siepmann on it :

“Is it possible..that the most dazzling recording ever made of Schumann's Carnaval was set down in 1929 by a lugubrious-looking composer who looked on piano-playing as a sidline? Most pianists, I think, would say so. And I'd hazard a guess that a similar poll conducted one hundred years hence would produce exactly the same answer. As a combination of staggering pianism and creative interpretation at the highest level of imagination, Rachmaninov's famous recording is one of the few artefacts which actually justify that much abused phrase "...of all time"