Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / A 2010 Schumann Compilation from EMI

Transcript

A 2010 Schumann Compilation from EMI · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:00
  This is Jed Distler and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
• 0:15
  I came across this compilation of Schumann's piano music.
• 0:20
  It's a six disc set that was reissued in 2010 by EMI, which now is Warner Classics.
• 0:30
  This was an interesting collection that contained, I guess, about 75% of Schumann's major large-scale works, all taken from EMI's back catalogue.
• 0:43
  The compilation was produced by Richard J. Bradburn and I have to say that he made some pretty interesting performance choices.
• 0:52
  Maybe I would have chosen a few things differently, but it's clear that he had a real awareness of the catalogue,
• 1:01
  and he chose quite a few performances that had not been easy to source at that time in 2010.
• 1:09
  So I want to go through these six discs just to see what we have.
• 1:15
  The first CD features Jean-Philippe Collab in the Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13, the Three Romances, Op. 28, the Abeg Variations, Op. 1, and the Impromptus on the theme of Clara Wieck, Op. 5.
• 1:35
  These generally are really fun performances. The Symphonic Etudes includes all five of the posthumous variations, and Collard is very smart about repeats.
• 1:49
  He doesn't play each and every repeat, which personally I don't think is really that necessary,
• 1:55
  because if you play all the repeats, it can make the work seem a little too long.
• 2:02
  I guess it depends on who's playing it. Anyway, I think Collard's Abeg Variations were a little mannered for my taste.
• 2:12
  That's what I remembered when I was hearing them the first time. And then I played them again, and I really haven't changed my mind.
• 2:20
  I don't think this performance honestly has anything on the fantastic Sveta Slav Richter live Deutsche Grammophon recording or Clara Haskell's version, I think from 1954 on Phillips.
• 2:34
  But Jean-Philippe Collard plays the Op. 5 Impromptus really poetically, and he shows a real commitment to the material that makes these pieces sound much more interesting than they really are.
• 2:49
  This isn't top-tier Schumann, frankly. That's probably a reason why pianists seldom play the Op. 5 Impromptus in concert.
• 2:59
  The romances, I think, inspire some of Collard's best playing on disc. These are really beautiful, beautiful performances.
• 3:08
  I think Warner Classics ought to bring out a box set with Jean-Philippe Collard's complete recordings for EMI.
• 3:16
  He really did quite a lot for that label. The Sasson concertos with Andrei Previn. He did a Rachmaninoff concerto cycle that really deserves wider attention.
• 3:28
  I like those performances a lot. But let's get back to the Schumann collection. The second CD features Christian Zacharias, and he was another very productive pianist in the EMI stable back in the day.
• 3:44
  I'm looking at my ClassicsToday.com review of this compilation, and I see that I describe Zacharias in the Papillon, David's boulevard tons, and the kinderzänen as well-oiled and hard-hitting performances.
• 4:04
  I think that's kind of true. They're alternately suave and aggressive, and I think that kind of works in this repertoire. Personally, I would have liked a little more fantasy and expansiveness in all of these works, lyrical movements perhaps.
• 4:22
  CD number three. Oh my goodness, we have here the notorious 1975 Schumann Carnival with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, and he plays every repeat under the sun, God help us.
• 4:42
  This is the most hyper-detailed, utterly charmless, emotionally aloof Schumann Carnival on planet Earth. It's not so much an interpretation as an embalment, and I can say the same for the few selections that he plays from Album for the Young.
• 5:03
  The way Michelangeli plays Album for the Young selections, I would call it Album for the Old and Cranky. But on this disc, we get Jean-Philippe Collard again in the Piano Sonata No. 3, the Concerto without Orchestra.
• 5:19
  This is kind of an interesting recording because Collard plays down the music's combative and volatile qualities, and he basically settles into an intimate, kind of soft-grained interpretation that I think is convincing on its own terms.
• 5:38
  It's very different from the Vladimir Horowitz recording, or even Andras Schiff for that matter. The fourth CD in this Schumann collection features Leif Ove Anznas and his absolutely wonderful Schumann first sonata coupled with the C major fantasy.
• 5:59
  That was a reference version of those two pieces. Certainly it was up there with the references. I love these performances. Also on this disc, filling out those big pieces, is Yuri Egorov playing the Schumann Toccata. That is absolutely gorgeous.
• 6:17
  CD No. 5 gives us the classic Faschenschwank aus Wien, the Carnival Jest from Vienna, and the Piano Sonata No. 2 in G minor, both live performances with Sviatoslav Richter from 1962.
• 6:35
  This is Richter in his unambiguous prime. And also on this disc are beautifully nuanced readings of the Intermezzi Opus 4 and the Gesang der Fröhre. Did I pronounce that right? The morning songs.
• 6:52
  And these are played by Alexander Longquitch. Really, really beautiful playing. The final disc, No. 6, offers what I called in my review overly probing performances of Kreisler Rihanna and the Bunteblatter by Lars Vogt.
• 7:11
  And these recordings recently came out again in the complete Lars Vogt-Warner recordings box set, which I reviewed for Gramophone, by the way.
• 7:23
  I like these performances much more than I did originally. They've really grown on me. I mean, he still telegraphs certain tempo fluctuations and subito dynamics in a way that you can sort of tell how he practiced these pieces.
• 7:41
  But Lars Vogt was a serious artist, and he clearly had a lot to say, and he had so much admiration and respect and affection from fellow pianists. He died way too young.
• 7:54
  Of course, had I been the compiler of this collection, I might have picked Maria Tipo's long out of print symphonic etudes in kinderzeinen, and instead of Michelangelo's Carnival, I would have picked the George Schifra Carnival. It's totally alive and full of spontaneity and spunk.
• 8:16
  Maybe I would have chosen Richter's Papillon to round out the Carnival Jess from Vienne and the Piano Sonata No. 2. And also for Kreisler Rihanna, although I'm very happy to have the Lars Vogt recording,
• 8:31
  Yuri Egeroff made an amazing Kreisler Rihanna that is in my reference top tier. I would say that's one of my top five or six Kreisler Rihannas. And maybe had we had another disc, I would have tossed in Michel Barof playing Waldsen, and that is a terrific recording.
• 8:53
  And Martha Argerich in the Phantasy, a Stuck, Op. 12, because that came out on EMI. It's also been out on Sony and a whole bunch of other labels.
• 9:04
  So I remember a pianist who is not very well known, but who I always thought was really talented, Heysun Paik. And there was this series of EMI debut releases with emerging young talents, and Heysun Paik's disc included the Schumann Humoresque in a really terrific and authoritative performance.
• 9:31
  I imagine everyone who looks at the contents of the set would have their own ideas about what to include. But I think on the whole, it is very well curated and if you can find a copy of it, definitely get hold of it.
• 9:46
  But I'm sure you can access these performances, either in download format or through streaming. This is Jed Disler and you have been listening to the Piano Maven podcast. I hope we will be together next time. Take good care.
• 10:16
  Thank you.