What do you think of the Schumann cello concerto?

[Mandryka]

Brahms, Joachim and Clara thought it shouldn't be published. Shostakovich orchestrated it. Furtwangler, Casals, Fournier, Rostropovich, Britten, Piatigorsky, Barbirolli, Kondrashin, Schiff, Haitink all played it. For me it's a bit of a pons asinorum.

[smittims]

I'm sorry to say it's a work I 'don't mind hearing', though I should add that applies to many other works by many other composers. It's not bad, just rather dull. The violin concerto, on the other hand, is quite definitely flawed but it has marvellous passages which redeem it and make it more desirable.

[mikealdren]

I'm sorry to say it's a work I 'don't mind hearing', though I should add that applies to many other works by many other composers. It's not bad, just rather dull. The violin concerto, on the other hand, is quite definitely flawed but it has marvellous passages which redeem it and make it more desirable.

I could not agree more. sadly the piano concerto doesn't really satisfy me either.

[RichardB]

The cello concertp doesn't do the things romantic cello concertos are supposed to do - it doesn't highlight the virtuosity of the soloist and its focus is almost exclusively inward-looking, but these are aspects of Schumann's music more generally which are particularly concentrated in this work; it's when it seems to try to break out of its internal monologue, in the third movement, and be a "proper" concerto, that things come unstuck, not helped by the unmemorable thematic material of that movement. One of the problems I have with a lot of Schumann is what I read as an unresolved contradiction between what his highly individual and sophisticated artistic intelligence is leading him towards and what he thinks he "ought" to do. So with the cello concerto (but not with the piano concerto) I feel as soon as the third movement begins that he's lost his nerve, and I lose my interest in how it unfolds.

[Stanfordian]

The cello concertp doesn't do the things romantic cello concertos are supposed to do - it doesn't highlight the virtuosity of the soloist and its focus is almost exclusively inward-looking, but these are aspects of Schumann's music more generally which are particularly concentrated in this work; it's when it seems to try to break out of its internal monologue, in the third movement, and be a "proper" concerto, that things come unstuck, not helped by the unmemorable thematic material of that movement. One of the problems I have with a lot of Schumann is what I read as an unresolved contradiction between what his highly individual and sophisticated artistic intelligence is leading him towards and what he thinks he "ought" to do. So with the cello concerto (but not with the piano concerto) I feel as soon as the third movement begins that he's lost his nerve, and I lose my interest in how it unfolds.

The Schumann is one of just a few known German Romantic cello concertos. A celebrated German born cellist, that I interviewed, who is living in the USA often gets asked to play the Schumann. With few alterantives concert promoters want a German playing a German Romantic cello concerto. The Schumann concerto has done very well for him.

[RichardB]

The Schumann is one of just a few known German Romantic cello concertos. A celebrated German born cellist, that I interviewed, who is living in the USA often gets asked to play the Schumann. With few alterantives concert promoters want a German playing a German Romantic cello concerto. The Schumann concerto has done very well for him.

I'm not at all surprised, but that doesn't say anything about your or his opinion of the piece!

[gurnemanz]

I've just played played the recording from Mstislav Rostropovich and Benjamin Britten with LSO, a live performance in Orford Church from the 1961 Aldeburgh Festival. A rewarding experience to be led through the work by two committed major musical protagonists. I read recently that Schumann had also been a pretty good cellist. A rather moving short slow movement. I read the wiki entry which points to something I had not really noticed before: "the soloist has a duet with the principal cellist, a very unusual texture; some have suggested this could be interpreted as a conversation between Clara and the composer".

It admittedly seems a less compelling and dynamic work, for me at least, than the first item on the BBC Legends CD, which is Rostropovich and Gennady Rozhdestvensky in Shostakovich Cello Concerto No 1 Op 107, live with the Leningrad Phil from the Usher Hall in 1960.

[Barbirollians]

I love it - especially when Jacqueline du Pre was the soloist both with Barenboim and also when much younger on ICA Classics.

I should also strongly recommend the Isserlis/Eschenbach account.

[Barbirollians]

I've just played played the recording from Mstislav Rostropovich and Benjamin Britten with LSO, a live performance in Orford Church from the 1961 Aldeburgh Festival. A rewarding experience to be led through the work by two committed major musical protagonists. I read recently that Schumann had also been a pretty good cellist. A rather moving short slow movement. I read the wiki entry which points to something I had not really noticed before: "the soloist has a duet with the principal cellist, a very unusual texture; some have suggested this could be interpreted as a conversation between Clara and the composer".

It admittedly seems a less compelling and dynamic work, for me at least, than the first item on the BBC Legends CD, which is Rostropovich and Gennady Rozhdestvensky in Shostakovich Cello Concerto No 1 Op 107, live with the Leningrad Phil from the Usher Hall in 1960.

Interestingly, I have the same performance coupled with the famous/infamous Rostropovich UUSSR/So account of the Dvorak when the tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia.

[Mandryka]

The one I've been listening to is Mischa Maisky -- partly because I felt it would benefit from someone who'd feel happy about sudden changes from Florestan to Eusebius. I think he's conducting the orchestra from the cello.

[ChandlersFord]

It is a badly flawed work, and no more than a curio.

[Mandryka]

Yo Yo Ma included the concerto in a recording called "Great Cello Concertos" -- so I guess he likes it.

I know something about Yo Yo Ma from this latest recording of the Bach suites. He can take pretty complicated music and somehow spell it out so clearly that it all makes total sense and is completely clear and easy, agreeable even, to follow.

I must say, I'm glad to have found his recording of the Schumann concerto with Colin Davis -- because he does exactly that!

https://www.discogs.com/release/7149440-Yo-Yo-Ma-Great-Cello-Concertos

[jayne lee wilson]

Schumann : Cello Concerto - Piano Trio No 1
Jean-Guihen Queyras - Pablo Heras-Casado

• Released on 01/04/2016 by harmonia mundi
• Main artist: Pablo Heras-Casado/ Isabelle Faust/ Freiburger Barockorchester /Alexander Melnikov/ Jean-Guihen Queyras
• QOBUZ 24/96

“The focal point of this process, as Schumann had already urged in 1835, was the endeavour ‘not to develop an idea only in one movement’, but to pursue it ‘in other forms and mutations in the ensuing movements’ in order to bring about ‘an internal connection, a poetic whole’.
Thus the work seems to be laid out as a long monologue, rich in ideas: yearning and urgent in the first movement; delicately cantabile and inward in the slow intermezzo in F major, a wistful dialogue with the principal cellist of the orchestra; and teeming with fiery vitality and capricious, almost overwrought exhilaration in the finale. "

From the Notes, by Roman Hinke

[Dave2002]

I had to remind myself what this piece is like:

Not terrible at all. What does one expect from any piece?

[Dave2002]

Interestingly, I have the same performance coupled with the famous/infamous Rostropovich UUSSR/So account of the Dvorak when the tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia.

I believe I was at that concert ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/rpp38g/by/date/1968/08/21

Absolutely great evening. Woke up the following day to hear about the invasion.