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

[AmpH]

I've itched and come close on a few occasions since it came out!

EDIT: actually, I can't see that the Schumann symphonies are in either of the two big 50+ CD 'Mercury Living Presence' boxes which have tempted me... Happy to be corrected.

The Schumann / Paray Symphonies are in the third big MLP box - discs 32 & 33 along with leafy cover and numerous other delights ( in the box ).

https://www.deccaclassics.com/us/cat/4787896

Also available separately on cd from Presto.

https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/classical/products/8076200--schumann-the-four-symphonies

[gurnemanz]

Anyone else doing a sort of continuous mini-BaL of their own...?

I did a mini-Bal and reported back above. Such a personal tour d'horizon is often a subsidiary pleasure of BaL for me. I sometimes don't even bother with the real thing because it clashes with Danny Baker on Five Live and I have to catch up via i-Player.

[jayne lee wilson]

I so want to like Kubelik; he clearly loves and understands Schumann’s shades and subtleties. His Berlin Phil 1st movement is so carefully shaped and sensitively phrased, the dynamics quite subtle for such a large band; his Bavarian Romanze reaches into surprising depths; I enjoy at least some of it, almost in spite of myself; but I still end up feeling a bit weary and bludgeoned, wishing he’d had the chance to record Schumann with the Lausanne CO, or in Basle. Could that have tightened the conception up, encouraged brisker tempi? In both the Berlin and BRSO readings, despite his sensitive response he presents the work as a grand Romantic symphony with quite an epic feel, missing the sense of innovative excitement that is part of the work’s youthful, individualistic essence; yet, almost uniquely among older, larger-orchestra records, something draws me back. The interpretations are similar, with the Bavarian one having a more distanced, resonant and atmospheric presentation.


Turn to Yannick Nézet-Séguin and, given the compactness and quality of the COE, you’re in another league for subtlety and vivacity of orchestral response, to the phrase-to-phrase direction. It’s marvellously fresh, re-imagined, and any potential jadedness with that very repetitive 1st movement is soon forgotten. The whole performance has an extraordinary joy and freedom about it, with an utterly splendid final climax and coda. One of the best 4ths for years, which sounds better each time I revisit it - true of the whole cycle as well.
The COE sound very different here to the Harnoncourt set of the 1990s; sweeter and warmer, melodically moulded. But one thing they do have in common is the thrill of a powerful, punchy dynamic impact, especially in winds and brasses, coming so unexpectedly off a leaner body of sound.

DG SHM-CD / Sony Blu-Spec CD (Kubelik); DG CD (YNS)

[Beef Oven!]

Anyone else doing a sort of continuous mini-BaL of their own...? I've been listening to (or at least "at")...

Well not quite a mini BaL, but I've been listening to a few S4s each day since last week.

Karajan BPO, DG
Celibidache MPO, EMI
Zinman Tonhalle, Arte Nove
Wand NDRSO, RCA
Nézet-Séguin COE, DG

Have put aside Furtwaengler and JEG for the moment (as special out-lyers)

Love the Celi, but lacks snap in critical passages.
Zinman is a bit clunky to my ears and lacks the mellifluous flow between passages (not necessarily the big obvious episodes).
The violin in the second movement is too spotlit in the Karajan for my taste.
The Nézet-Séguin is slightly understated throughout (subtle?).

My view so far is a toss-up between Karajan and Nézet-Séguin

The story continues ......

[silvestrione]

Cantelli with the Philharmonia has plenty of snap, lean and lithe and expressive too! The 1953 sound is not bad.

[Alison]

Don’t forget Robin Ticciati.

[jayne lee wilson]

Don’t forget Robin Ticciati.

Patience, patience.... that was an amazing year, 2014, when so much Schumann came out at once - Ticciati, Nézet-Séguin, Holliger, and others. (I recall Richard Wigmore did the BaL on the Schumann 2nd, choosing - JEG).

Back then, I inclined strongly toward Ticciati initially, but YNS eventually won my heart. So I've held off until now. Perhaps tonight....
Having enjoyed much of his cycle a few years ago, I was surprised and disappointed this time around by the Dausgaard (1851): he keeps his orchestra on a very tight leash: so strict, metrical and oddly colourless.

There's still 1841 to consider too.......I can't imagine anything bettering Harnoncourt, but.... any thoughts, Beef?

[visualnickmos]

My view so far is a toss-up between Karajan and Nézet-Séguin

The story continues ......

Weirdly, I don't know Karajan at all in Schumann.

However, I am listening to Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony orchestra. Rather enjoyable, fairly 'bouncy' I suppose. Yes - a bit dated, maybe.

[Petrushka]

I've got many Schumann 4's on my shelves, my first one being LSO/Krips on an old Decca Eclipse LP, but my favourite Schumann cycle is BPO/Kubelik which includes a fine 4th.

[Beef Oven!]

Patience, patience.... that was an amazing year, 2014, when so much Schumann came out at once - Ticciati, Nézet-Séguin, Holliger, and others. (I recall Richard Wigmore did the BaL on the Schumann 2nd, choosing - JEG).

Back then, I inclined strongly toward Ticciati initially, but YNS eventually won my heart. So I've held off until now. Perhaps tonight....
Having enjoyed much of his cycle a few years ago, I was surprised and disappointed this time around by the Dausgaard (1851): he keeps his orchestra on a very tight leash: so strict, metrical and oddly colourless.

There's still 1841 to consider too.......I can't imagine anything bettering Harnoncourt, but.... any thoughts, Beef?

I don't know the Harnoncourt.

[Beef Oven!]

Weirdly, I don't know Karajan at all in Schumann.

Not sure how you've managed that

[visualnickmos]

Not sure how you've managed that

I will certainly be hoping to rectify this gross oversight, as soon as a 'cheapish' offer comes up!

[Barbirollians]

Furtwangler
Sawallisch
Bernstein for me in that order with WF a long way out in front.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I listened to the BPO/Furtwangler again this afternoon, and yet again, I was bowled over by the structure of this remarkable work - the way themes are transformed so they fit perfectly into traditional symphonic "slots" in different parts of the symphony.

Has any other composer achieved this before or since?

[jayne lee wilson]

I listened to the BPO/Furtwangler again this afternoon, and yet again, I was bowled over by the structure of this remarkable work - the way themes are transformed so they fit perfectly into traditional symphonic "slots" in different parts of the symphony.

Has any other composer achieved this before or since?

The closest parallels I can think of regarding symphonically integrated cyclical form would be Bruckner's 5th (all the more remarkable given its scale and depth) and Mendelssohn's 3rd - though the latter is subtler in its internal references and transformations. But you'll find other examples in Mendelssohn, who was every bit as fascinated by the concept as his earliest chamber musical masterpieces show - and liked attacca movements too.

And how about the Franck D Minor Symphony for a more easily traceable transformative recurrence, using the same theme for the slow-movement-with- scherzo elements, compressed into a single allegretto; the finale starts with a variant of the first-movement 2nd theme (the "faith" theme), then brings all the others back in various structural roles.
(Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy and Liszt's 2nd Piano Concerto aren't far from the concept either).

I think the Schumann 4th stands out because there isn’t much development as those themes play a game of eternal recurrence, the thematic variants are always easily recognisable, like Wagnerian leitmotifs, or a Tippettian mosaic. Especially in the 1841 original, you feel Schumann's inspirational urge to get it down fast - it's very swift, lean and concise: gets in there, says what it has to say, gets out again.
This symphony in one movement is also a symphony without 1st movement recapitulation, as the motto theme arrives late in the development, takes over and dominates until the single-chord transition into the Romanze. Who needs such things as recaps, when there’s so much going-around and coming-around anyway?
At which point one starts thinking of Schoenberg's 1st Chamber Symphony, an even more closely integrated four-in-one-movement symphony with a motto theme...

***

(Very) late insomniac edit: just heard SCO/Ticciati (1851)... OhMyGod...Oh. My. God....to make a symphony so familiar, live so vividly....(later, later...)
(Hint: Beef - you might not need Furtwangler anymore....)