BaL 4.01.14 - Schumann's Symphony no. 1 in B flat "Spring"

[Don Petter]

Yes it was, with some appreciation

Thanks. I only managed to catch the final minute or two. (Saturday Slugabed!)

[MickyD]

Just to add to the initial list, I remember there was a set of the symphonies from The Hanover Band with Roy Goodman which got some good reviews at the time, some preferring it to the ORR and Gardiner.

[ardcarp]

Well i enjoyed this BaL - I thought that Erica Jeal managed to pack a lot in, illustrated a good many recordings of sundry varitations of approach and she mentioned Boult and Norrington with some favour, so no narrowness of approach here. i've enjoyed the Zinman set and it's so nice and ... cheap

I'd just like to add my congrats to Erica Jeal for a really excellent overview this morning. She packed in a lot, she was concise and thoughtful in her reasoning, and I for one learned a lot (e.g. the Mendelssohn and the Mahler 'improvements'). I think her choice of Zinman was not only a sensible balance between the excesses of Bernstein (OMG that slow movement from his 60s recording!) and the uber clinical Norrington. It was clearly a performance which did something for her...and after all, it is a personal recommendation when all's said and done. I hope we get more reviews from Erica....someone with a good ear, good communication and an analytical mind. I'm going to buy the (nice cheap) set as I've got to do the Spring Symphony in the near future. I'm not a lover of Schumann's rather stodgy orchestral writing....so hope Zinman will give me some nice ideas to crib to bring it to life.

[jayne lee wilson]

Well if you want to believe that Schumann is a lightweight non entity of a composer that is the set to choose. Skates over the surface of the music just as his Beethoven set does .

Too categorical, Bb. I adore Schumann and I loved this cycle as soon as I heard it and never stopped. Zinman's No.1 is the best kind of revisionist with modern instruments - refreshing the interpretative tradition without being too radically look-at-me. If I now prefer those radicals - Harnoncourt say, or Dausgaard - it's only because they go further down the same path; open-textured, rhythmically agile but dynamic, songful and expressive where apt, especially telling in moments like the mini-cadenza for horns and flute in the finale. Zinman is lovely here, in the wind-down, the solos themselves and the return to the allegro. But a recorded tradition as long, rich and deep as that of Schumann's symphonies can only be kept alive by renewal, not museological preservation. Like Spring itself (at least, until the ice-caps melt...)

I've never seen Schumann as a "heavyweight", too much anima in him for that, I place him more with Mendelssohn and Berwald than Beethoven or Brahms.

...and no sooner does Holliger's WDR 1/4(1841 etc) receive high praise from RC in the Gramophone (now wondrously Spring-renewed itself in the 1/2014 issue - 60 pages of longer reviews, dedicated reissue section from JJ, much trivia ejected!?.. changed, changed utterly) than yet another cycle appears from Schonwandt/Netherlands RPO (deceased), and Threasher recommends... but I'm officially sworn off buying familiar classics so...

[LeMartinPecheur]

I'm still wondering why the PO/Klemperer version didn't get a mention - light, airy, HIPP-informed, at a mere 35+ mins

[ardcarp]

Zinman's No.1 is the best kind of revisionist with modern instruments - refreshing the interpretative tradition without being too radically look-at-me.

That was my impression, jl-w, and I'm hoping not to be disappointed when my set arrives.

I've never seen Schumann as a "heavyweight", too much anima in him for that, I place him more with Mendelssohn and Berwald than Beethoven or Brahms.

Interpreting the word 'heavyweight' as masterly genius, then I put him second-to-none in his contribution to the piano repertoire, especially in his exploration of what the piano could do. Pretty good at songs too, It was interesting that today''s reviewer mentioned his 'lack of experiernce' with orchestration. The 'Rhenish' was the first symphonic work of Schumann's that I got to know, and my fingers itched to 'lighten up' the orchestral doublings; so I can well understand why Mahler wanted to weigh in with the 'Spring'. What I can't understand though is how Schumann managed to write so idiomatically for the 4 horns in his Konzertstuck, a wonderful piece. Any ideas?

[Roehre]

...., It was interesting that today''s reviewer mentioned his 'lack of experiernce' with orchestration. The 'Rhenish' was the first symphonic work of Schumann's that I got to know, and my fingers itched to 'lighten up' the orchestral doublings; so I can well understand why Mahler wanted to weigh in with the 'Spring'. What I can't understand though is how Schumann managed to write so idiomatically for the 4 horns in his Konzertstuck, a wonderful piece. Any ideas?

the only explanation for this is that Schumann knew what he wanted, and that the development of the musical instruments in especially the second half of the 19th century caused a change in orchestral balance up to and including Schumann and even the earlier Brahms orchestral works (opening Brahms piano concerto 1, even the original size of the orchestra of Brahms 1).
Mahler did not "thin" the doublings in Schumann. He retouched the orchestration where thinning would have the better solution for an orchestra with a Mahlerian size.

In that respect it is very informative to check balances (especially doublings) as written by Schumann with Berlioz' Traité d'Instrumentation (the original one, not the Strauss re-writing), or even Rimsky Korssakov's handbook (though R-K already seems to be used to larger orchestral forces than usual at Schumann's time)

JEG's set e.g. shows the proper colours of what Schumann must have had in mind - and even Mendelssohn with his orchestral experience from a very young age did not change Schumann's orchestrations apart from an incidental retouche like the very opening of the "Spring"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

What I can't understand though is how Schumann managed to write so idiomatically for the 4 horns in his Konzertstuck, a wonderful piece. Any ideas?

"Spring" Symphony = 1841
Konzertstuck = 1849

... in the intervening eight years, he'd had the "experience" that he "lacked" when he wrote the First Symphony.

(And Roehre is right - played on the instruments whose timbres the composer had in mind, the balance and lucidity of Schumann's orchestration demonstrates that he had a good idea of what the Music needed even in his "inexperienced" ear. It's only poorly-judged modern instrument performances that can make this youthful, virile and lithe Music (with its perfect Body Mass Index) sound obese.)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Zinman's No.1 is the best kind of revisionist with modern instruments - refreshing the interpretative tradition without being too radically look-at-me.

I thought so too. (Incidentally Zinman does a refreshing Alpine too.)

[Bryn]

"Spring" Symphony = 1841
Konzertstuck = 1849

... in the intervening eight years, he'd had the "experience" that he "lacked" when he wrote the First Symphony.

(And Roehre is right - played on the instruments whose timbres the composer had in mind, the balance and lucidity of Schumann's orchestration demonstrates that he had a good idea of what the Music needed even in his "inexperienced" ear. It's only poorly-judged modern instrument performances that can make this youthful, virile and lithe Music (with its perfect Body Mass Index) sound obese.)

My favourite recorded performances of most of Schumann's orchestral works remain those given by the SCO and Sir Charles Mackerras at the EIF (1999?) and broadcast by Radio 3. Time I gave the cassette transfers another hearing.

[Nick Armstrong]

I have Furtwangler, Karajan, and both Kubeliks - an HIPP recording would be a nice addition.

EDIT: Oh! And Muti with the Philharmonia on cassette.

Ferney, I would beg you to acquire the Sawallisch/Dresden performance. Over the years I've heard a number of the others mentioned in BAL and above, but none delivers for me anything close, overall (as I've mentioned on the Forum before). It gives inexhaustible pleasure - and it was good to hear it get an approving mention or two (and the 'runner-up' nod) in BAL.

The extracts of Zinman caught my ear though, and it's not one I've heard - tempted, at that price.

But some woeful stuff from others - that Bernstein/NYPO slow movement ... that horrific rallentando by Barenboim towards the end of the first movement ... and I'm afraid the HIPP approach makes it sound like tin-pot music to my ears. Plus I agree with Szell about the Mahler accretions being subtly but really awful.

[amateur51]

But some woeful stuff from others - that Bernstein/NYPO slow movement ... that horrific rallentando by Barenboim

Ms Jeal called it 'really slamming on the brakes' I think

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ferney, I would beg you to acquire the Sawallisch/Dresden performance. Over the years I've heard a number of the others mentioned in BAL and above, but none delivers for me anything close, overall (as I've mentioned on the Forum before). It gives inexhaustible pleasure - and it was good to hear it get an approving mention or two (and the 'runner-up' nod) in BAL.

Oh dear.

The Sawallisch is one of those "classics of the gramophone" that I've tried repeatedly to enjoy without any success. I don't know what exactly it is about them (or me), but I find them a bit ... well, "uninvolving"; a statement that the set's many admirers won't understand. I used to own it (on EMI Studio) but sold it off when I "downsized" over twenty years ago, and it's one of the few I haven't missed. (I kept the Karajan, and rapidly re-bought the Kubelik/BPO [which, IIRC, you didn't care for] within a year or two.)

Having said that, it is "over twenty years" since I last heard them; I might have grown up by now - a visit to Spotify beckons, methinks.

[Nick Armstrong]

Oh dear.

The Sawallisch is one of those "classics of the gramophone" that I've tried repeatedly to enjoy without any success...

Doesn't make you a bad person !

I know the feeling - there's a couple of instances of that phenomenon for me, too (the Michelangeli Ravel Piano Concerto in G is the one that springs to mind).

Give it another try. I love the pulse, and the impact and yet the air round the sound (the way those timps are 'placed') and the noise the Dresden lot make, individually and together...

[Bryn]

Having found many of his Beethoven and Mahler recordings very worthwhile (others, especially the later Mahler symphonies decidedly less so), I have taken the plunge an ordered his Schumann set via the amazon.co.uk marketplace. While I do not expect them to be up there with Mackerras's or Norrington's, I do expect them to be better than the stodge dished up by the anachronistically overblown orchestras popularly used in the 20th century.