What do you think of the Schumann cello concerto?

[Dave2002]

The YT video (msg 14 above) is for string orchestra only - so an arrangement of what Schumann presumably wrote, unless there is more than one version.

See https://imslp.org/wiki/Cello_Concert...umann,_Robert)

There should be wind instruments as well, as in this performance:

[Barbirollians]

It is strange that for a work that attracts opprobrium as on this thread it is played by all the leading cellists and is at the heart of their repertoire. To my ears it is an extremely enjoyable if unusual work for cello and its popularity seems to bear that out.

[MickyD]

In addition to the HIPP Queyras, there's this, with which you also get Andreas Staier playing the piano concerto.

[gradus]

It is strange that for a work that attracts opprobrium as on this thread it is played by all the leading cellists and is at the heart of their repertoire. To my ears it is an extremely enjoyable if unusual work for cello and its popularity seems to bear that out.

That's how I see it too.

[Barbirollians]

In addition to the HIPP Queyras, there's this, with which you also get Andreas Staier playing the piano concerto.

As I recall that version has taken high rank on BAL in the past.

[Mandryka]

The YT video (msg 14 above) is for string orchestra only - so an arrangement of what Schumann presumably wrote, unless there is more than one version.

See https://imslp.org/wiki/Cello_Concert...umann,_Robert)

There should be wind instruments as well, as in this performance:

I wonder if the string orchestra version is Schumann's and the additional instrument's Shostakovich's.

[RichardB]

It is strange that for a work that attracts opprobrium as on this thread it is played by all the leading cellists and is at the heart of their repertoire.

That is easily explained by there being so few cello concertos in the "romantic" repertoire, compared to those for piano or violin. Players of some other instruments have even less repertoire to choose from, involving a certain amount of barrel-scraping!

For me, Schumann's concerto only really loses its way in the last movement, where he might have done better to continue in the vein of what comes before, instead of taking a turn towards a more conventional idea of what a finale ought to do. The new material brought in for the finale seems to me a bit perfunctory in comparison with the rest. But it remains a fascinating work. Much of the "opprobrium" attracted by it seems to me to be connected with its somewhat "experimental" nature, but that of course can be taken as a positive of a negative attribute, according to the listener's degree of small-c conservatism... Like Schumann's orchestral music in general, it seems to me to benefit from the HIPP approach (or the Mahler approach!) if its textures aren't to sound dull and undifferentiated. I would recommend anyone not convinced to listen first to the Coin recording cited above before giving up on it. (And Staier's performance of his concerto is exceptional too.)

[RichardB]

I wonder if the string orchestra version is Schumann's and the additional instrument's Shostakovich's.

Schumann's version is scored for double woodwinds and brass, timpani and strings. The string orchestra version is by the Swiss composer Arthur Lilienthal. Shostakovich added harp and piccolo and doubled the horns and changed many dynamics and articulations, at Rostropovich's request, although Rostropovich went back to playing the original version before long.

[jayne lee wilson]

Roman Hinke:
“the conventional three-movement structure of the cello concerto is no more than formally preserved – a façade, one might say. If one ignores it, what emerges is a kind of musical novella, spanned by a closed arc and supported by numerous motivic cross-references between the individual sections, the majority derived from the motto-like wind chords of the work’s opening. The model of dialectical contrast derived from symphonic music, which still reigned unchallenged in the concertos of Beethoven, in particular, is here replaced by a flowing, sometimes apparently rambling narrative style, which no longer permits clear dividing lines between the movements.”

JLW:
So the 3-note motif that drives the finale derives from the softer 3-note motif that enters in the 1st movement, and both come from those opening chords. The thematic integration is far subtler and further-reaching than the obvious appearance of the first cello theme towards the end of the intermezzo, as the intensification it introduces prepares for the finale.

[edashtav]

Robert Volkmann’s Cello Concerto, written shortly after Schumann’s, is in the same key, A minor, and is cast in one very romantic movement. Brahms knew and conducted Volkmann’ piece and it’s possible that it may influenced Brahms’ late double concerto.