BaL 2.06.18 - Schumann: Symphony no. 4 in D minor

[cloughie]

On R3 BAL I'm always surprised by the store placed on the viewpoint of single reviewers. Surely reviews are intended to be merely guides! I never heard any great claims made for the chosen recording prior to the recent BAL programme.

I've had the Sawallisch's set a number of decades but I haven't played it for ages. I've said before that I greatly admire Rattle with Berliner Philharmoniker recorded live at Philharmonie - November 2013 on the orchestra's own label. In fact, I relish the Rattle's complete set of Schumann's symphonies.

Yes but what a shame it is not more affordable!

[Bryn]

I had Zinman's Beethoven set for a while but, for me, it was like taking a bath in a puddle; crystal clear water perhaps, but still a puddle. Maybe I'm an old hippo, but I need the full mud wallow of Karajan et. al. to feel at all happy. So I'm very wary of chamber approaches to the "big beasts". Maybe I am "stuck in the mud", but can you teach an old hippo new tricks? (I did keep a couple of Zinman disks, and you bothered me enough to continue giving them a chance... maybe the chamber approach will click...) . . .

Have you ever wondered about the size of orchestra and venue Beethoven hqd available? The size of orchestra you appear to favour would have left no room at all for even a small audience. For a real ear-openner try the piano concerto recordings from Arthur Schoonderwoerd and Cristofori. They use not only instruments of the types available to Be3ethoven but in the proportions of the early perfromances.

[Stanfordian]

Yes but what a shame it is not more affordable!

Hello cloughie,

You would have to contact the Berliner Philharmonbiker marketing department about that!

Some of its high price boxes have been brought out on CD. Enough people contacting them would surely do the trick.

[Stanfordian]

I’ve been wondering. Donsales of BaL winners increase, after?

Bound to! That's if they are available!

[Bryn]

Hello cloughie,

You would have to contact the Berliner Philharmonbiker marketing department about that!

Various options available from the BP site.

[Mal]

Have you ever wondered about the size of orchestra and venue Beethoven had available? The size of orchestra you appear to favour would have left no room at all for even a small audience. For a real ear-openner try the piano concerto recordings from Arthur Schoonderwoerd and Cristofori. They use not only instruments of the types available to Beethoven but in the proportions of the early performances.

Maybe he would have preferred a bigger orchestra and a bigger piano? In any case, I do, and that's what really matters! I don't like Beethoven on forte-piano. Let me wallow in my mud in peace :)

[mikealdren]

.....and our old friend The Polar Bear is very reliable...

River People I have worked out but The Polar Bear???

[Alison]

I find myself disagreeing with Mr Mival on the Ticciati approach but rather pleased he said it!

In essence I have a difficult-to-shift predilection for traditional symphony orchestras. Just not sure chamber orchestras always have the last word.

[Bryn]

I find myself disagreeing with Mr Mival on the Ticciati approach but rather pleased he said it!

In essence I have a difficult-to-shift predilection for traditional symphony orchestras. Just not sure chamber orchestras have to have the last word.

Ah, but how old a tradition would that be?

[jayne lee wilson]

I had Zinman's Beethoven set for a while but, for me, it was like taking a bath in a puddle; crystal clear water perhaps, but still a puddle. Maybe I'm an old hippo, but I need the full mud wallow of Karajan et. al. to feel at all happy. So I'm very wary of chamber approaches to the "big beasts". Maybe I am "stuck in the mud", but can you teach an old hippo new tricks? (I did keep a couple of Zinman disks, and you bothered me enough to continue giving them a chance... maybe the chamber approach will click...)


I suspect this might be true in this particular case, but compare Karajan '63 to Walter/Columbia in Beethoven and you hear a vast difference - in fact I need both sets to have a mud wallow that I'm entirely happy with.

I dipped into Harnoncourt's Beethoven on Spotify Premium and quite liked what I heard. So I might be tempted by his Schumann, the symphonies come in a little box with Argerich and Kremer in the concertos - and it's inexpensive - tempting! I'll add it to my maybe list... see it's worth bothering :) Thanks for all the input Jayne.

The Zurich Tonhalle is a full symphony orchestra of course (if less string-drenched than HvK etc.), with a HIPPs informed approach, as is his (in my view even better) Schumann cycle.
Notable too how different they sound with each composer, such is the flexibility engendered. And I would add (yet again) that a listener with your HIPP-O rather than HIPP-S tastes might find a classier vintage of tidal sediment with that 1851 Schumann 4th from Berlin Phil/Harnoncourt (Teldec 1996, see above), as well as going the whole-COE-hog (a really marvellous 3rd in this set, with uniquely cantabile singing lines from the start, where too many conductors stamp it all out...NH barely passes the Carlo Maria Giulini Paddle-Steamer test, but he has other priorities here ).

See Gramophone 5/2004 for an excellent Zinman/Barenboim comparison from Rob Cowan, with interesting (don't worry, quite positive!) comments on Kubelik, Karajan and Bernstein as well... in fact it was thanks to RC that I began to go back to Kubelik a few years ago, with mixed but very rewarding results (Another odd sin of omission from the BaL? IIRC).

Alison - it isn't so much the last word as the latest - i.e the news from the Schumann-Interpretation frontline, as a critique (pleasurable and thought-provoking, one always hopes, as JEG was) of what has gone before... just open your musical arms wide, is all I'm asking really.

Mike - The Polar Bear Classical is simply one of the best amazon CD retailers, and has stores in the North of England as well....
(I see someone's bought their copy of that NH 4th now...the cheap ones are going, going...)

I returned to the Mahler Editon of 4/1851 last night, LGO/Chailly... and was fairly knocked out by it....
What a lucky symphony this is, on record.... More later...

[Barbirollians]

Just listened to Bruno Walter's extraordinarily swift and exciting account from 1940 with the NBC Symphony. A corker of a performance albeit an alarming change of pitch in the finale.

[BBMmk2]

What complete cycles of Schumann’s Symphonies be best to get. I’m interested in both non-HIPP and HIPP recordings.

[Barbirollians]

What complete cycles of Schumann’s Symphonies be best to get. I’m interested in both non-HIPP and HIPP recordings.

I would suggest the safest bet would be Sawallisch for non HIPP and JEG for HIPP .

[BBMmk2]

I would suggest the safest bet would be Sawallisch for non HIPP and JEG for HIPP .

Many thanks Barbs! I will duly order!

[richardfinegold]

The Zurich Tonhalle is a full symphony orchestra of course (if less string-drenched than HvK etc.), with a HIPPs informed approach, as is his (in my view even better) Schumann cycle.
Notable too how different they sound with each composer, such is the flexibility engendered. And I would add (yet again) that a listener with your HIPP-O rather than HIPP-S tastes might find a classier vintage of tidal sediment with that 1851 Schumann 4th from Berlin Phil/Harnoncourt (Teldec 1996, see above), as well as going the whole-COE-hog (a really marvellous 3rd in this set, with uniquely cantabile singing lines from the start, where too many conductors stamp it all out...NH barely passes the Carlo Maria Giulini Paddle-Steamer test, but he has other priorities here ).

See Gramophone 5/2004 for an excellent Zinman/Barenboim comparison from Rob Cowan, with interesting (don't worry, quite positive!) comments on Kubelik, Karajan and Bernstein as well... in fact it was thanks to RC that I began to go back to Kubelik a few years ago, with mixed but very rewarding results (Another odd sin of omission from the BaL? IIRC).

Alison - it isn't so much the last word as the latest - i.e the news from the Schumann-Interpretation frontline, as a critique (pleasurable and thought-provoking, one always hopes, as JEG was) of what has gone before... just open your musical arms wide, is all I'm asking really.

Mike - The Polar Bear Classical is simply one of the best amazon CD retailers, and has stores in the North of England as well....
(I see someone's bought their copy of that NH 4th now...the cheap ones are going, going...)

I returned to the Mahler Editon of 4/1851 last night, LGO/Chailly... and was fairly knocked out by it....
What a lucky symphony this is, on record.... More later...

I thought that I recalled seeing when the Tonhalle and Zinman did their Beethoven and Mahler cycles, the lineup varied from around 55 to 70 players. For me that is somewhere between chamber and full fat size