Schumann Symphony No 2

[Petrushka]

Every now and then you experience a work completely anew having either not particularly cared for it or because it's not really registered amongst the pile of music heard.

I had such a revelatory moment when I heard Rattle and the LSO in the Schumann Symphony No 2 in a Barbican concert on R3 on June 1 and now I just can't get enough of the piece. Strange, really, because I'd heard it a few times over the years but it never really registered then all of a sudden it fell into place and I've been playing several recordings since.

A revelation to pile on another revelation, that's the superb recording from Claudio Abbado and Orchestra Mozart while I greatly admire the BPO/Kubelik as well. Karajan, Sawallisch and Chailly, all on my shelves are still to be re-heard. And what a hauntingly beautiful slow movement! Surely, this is Elgar's Enigma theme?

It's a great symphony, a true masterpiece that I've badly neglected and following upon my similar wonderment at Beethoven 2 (another that didn't really register) I'm hoping for similar enlightenment with another 2nd Symphony - Bruckner's - the one that continues to elude me.

Any thoughts or favourite recordings of the Schumann 2?

[Barbirollians]

Two for me - Szell and the Abbado that you refer to stand out - my other favourites you have covered above - Sawallisch and Kubelik.

[Roehre]

Kubelik BPO on DGG
JEG (also on DGG)

[kea]

Gardiner and/or Goodman

Special mention to Celibidache/Munich whose performance I have frequently mistaken for Bruckner. I'm not sure if you should be confusing Schumann and Bruckner, but it's certainly a singular interpretation.

[jayne lee wilson]

These days I'm a little allergic to Schumann with a modern, full-sized Symphony Orchestra... but Abbado/Orchestra Mozart are terrific, almost unsurpassable in their own way. Always amazed that no-one else here loves Harnoncourt's Schumann as much as I do. He has the COE on top form, freshly-formed interpretations of flair, wit and virtuosity, and very fine recorded sound. With that - for me - essential agility and volatility that only a chamber orchestra can produce. Latterly Dausgaard with the Swedish CO have set new standards in a similar vein... theirs is another great cycle, which for me surpasses Gardiner's texturally pioneering but emotionally rather stiff accounts. Zinman's with the Zurich Tonhalle is one of the best things he ever did there, and renews its pleasures on each revisit. Top-drawer sound again, as with most of Chris Hazell's and Simon Eadon's work in that venue.

Oddly enough, I wasn't mad keen on Rattle's LSO performance of No.2; full of interpretative interest, yes, but the ideas seemed sometimes half-formed and not entirely agreeable to the orchestra, who weren't quite secure in their delivery that night. I would love to hear Nezet-Seguin's new, much-praised cycle with the COE, but I've listened to too much Schumann earlier this year to go back to them yet. Of older performances, the best I've heard is Kubelik with the BRSO on Japanese Sony, wondrously lyrical, expressive and atmospheric, and far preferable to his somewhat unyielding Berlin Phil accounts.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... something of a wild card, but I adore Aldo Ceccato's very individual readings of the Mahler arrangements with the Bergen PO on BIS; an almost miraculous blend of warmth, power and transparency, with a lovely dancing and singing quality, rhythmically light and deft, the yin and the yang in perfect accord. Sample them on the eclassical website...

(Incidentally, David Threasher reviews Rattle's BPO cycle at length in July Gramophone... broadly positive, but he prefers Nezet-Seguin, finding Rattle rather studied, unspontaneous; in the Second Symphony, he feels Rattle and the BPO have "the muscularity of a thorougbred rather than the litheness of a dancer"... I would buy the N-S like a shot, but then I think of all those repetitions in the revised 4th and think... well, perhaps not just yet...)

**PETRUSHKA!! LOOK, JUST GO AND BUY BLOMSTEDT/LEIPZIG/QUERSTAND IN BRUCKNER 2 (CARRAGHAN 1872) AND HAVE DONE WITH IT! OR DO YOURSELF A BIGGER FAVOUR AND BUY 1,2 AND 3 WHILE YOU'RE ABOUT IT. SOME OF THE FINEST BRUCKNER ON DISC. EVER. AND THAT'S NOT A MATTER OF OPINION!)

[richardfinegold]

I had a similar epiphany to Schumann/2 about a year ago. In my case it was listening to recordings that I akready owned, but hadn't fully appreciated, that did it for me (Szell and Kubelik). Dausgaard, Karajan and Barenboim/Berlin Staatkapelle followed in short order as I became pretty obsessed with Schumann.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Karajan & Kubelik (both with the BPO). The Nezet-Seguin is calling to me still ...

[pastoralguy]

Any takers for Sinopoli with the Vienna Philharmonic on DG?

I seem to remember having the cassette tape and it made a big impression. The slow movt is, perhaps, a bit over-wrought with hankies being rung but the scherzo is sensational. It's coupled with a nervy 'Manfred' overture which was my introduction to the work.

[gurnemanz]

For many years I lived happily with the Sawallisch/Dresden set on LP as my only versions. I like all four but if arm-twisted I would probably not nominate the Second as my favourite. Of the CD versions I have accumulated I probably like Masur with LPO best. Disparaged by some reviewers, I find them to be totally convincing performances in great sound on Teldec, from a conductor who knows and cares about these works.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Any takers for Sinopoli with the Vienna Philharmonic on DG?

I seem to remember having the cassette tape and it made a big impression. The slow movt is, perhaps, a bit over-wrought with hankies being rung but the scherzo is sensational. It's coupled with a nervy 'Manfred' overture which was my introduction to the work.

I don't know the Sinopoli, but your mention of "cassette tape" reminds me of Riccardo Muti's splendid set with the Philharmonia that I have in that format.

[amateur51]

Big faves include Szell 'live' with Clevelanders, Casals at Marlborough and the Sinopoli already mentioned. Anyuone for Hans Vonk's set?

[HighlandDougie]

Any takers for Sinopoli with the Vienna Philharmonic on DG?

I've kept the LP (and still listen to it). Perhaps not a BaL choice but a performance that really makes you sit up and listen.

As to the Rattle, even in Blu-ray audio mode, the recording is a bit flat (or maybe I just don't like recordings from the Philharmonie). Kubelik in Berlin, Szell in SACD, Sawallisch as a 24/96 download and Abbado for me, with the odd listen to Y N-S and Dausgaard if I want something a bit leaner.

[Bryn]

These days I'm a little allergic to Schumann with a modern, full-sized Symphony Orchestra...

Did you catch the hurriedly prepared series of Schumann orchestral concerts Sir Charles Mackerras did with the SCO at the EIF in 1999? Here's what Conrad Wilson had to say about it in The Herald at the time:

ACCEPTING the quality of Schumann's orchestration is not quite the opposite of not accepting it. Accepting it does not necessarily mean believing that Schumann knew best, but simply recognising that he created a sound world which, for all its quirks, suited what he wanted to say. That, at any rate, seemed to be the philosophy behind the first of Sir Charles Mackerras's three Schumann programmes with the SCO, in which he took the music as it came, without seeking to prove it prettier, uglier, less opaque, more brilliant than it is thought to be. If the use of a chamber orchestra did throw special light on certain details, such as the timbre of the trombones, it did not prompt us to revise our opinions of the music as a whole. Yet this was a concert packed with interest, providing full scope for Sir Charles's enthusiasm for authentic horn tone, for original versions of works (in this case the D minor Symphony) subsequently revised, and for music with rarity value. Even if the symphony provided no major revelations in its earlier guise last night, it was good to hear it that way, particularly in a performance that did nothing to streamline it or to make it sound more portentous than it actually is. Earlier, the Spring symphony had rather a bumpy ride - this was definitely a Scottish spring rather than a German one - but it was Sir Charles's determination to allow Schumann his abrasiveness that gave the performance its integrity. The evening's most haunting moment, however, came in the Violin Concerto, that touching and still-neglected product of the composer's declining years. Christian Tetzlaff's delicate account of the solo part, and the spectral grace he brought to its dancing finale, did much to show how this strange cadaver is still worth resuscitating.

I saved them to cassette from FM broadcasts at the time and have since transferred them to CD-Rs. I still return to them again and again for a breath of fresh air, though the Goodman CDs of the Symphonies I find even more appealing.

[slarty]

George Szell - his commercial recording is the greatest - his live recording with the Berlinners from 1969 on Testament is also wonderful!
Once a great conductor like Szell begins to balance the orchestra properly, there is no need to go to these modern thinned down versions, It's like pouring water into a glass of great red wine.
The greatest live performance I ever saw was at the RFH on the 18th September 1979 - Celibidache and the LSO. Big Band beautifully balanced and played - superb.
I still have the broadcast to remind me.

[visualnickmos]

Does anyone have any thoughts on Solti's set with the Wiener Philharmoniker? I've listened to a few little morsels on Amazon, and they sound pretty fine, I would say, and yet he hasn't been mentioned so far here - I think. A bit surprising, but I'd be interested to hear more learned comment than any I can offer.

Let's see what pops up!