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A Look at Some Schumann Cycles · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

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  This is Jed Distler and welcome to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano
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  A few months back I devoted an episode to discussing the Schumann C major fantasy, opus
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  17, and a listener wrote in to ask me if there were any pianists who had recorded complete
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  cycles of Schumann's piano music.
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  There certainly have been, but I had not really researched exactly how many pianists had recorded
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  complete Schumann cycles.
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  There really haven't been all that many to be honest and furthermore some so-called complete
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  Schumann cycles are more complete than others in terms of including various revised versions
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  of works or including early sketches or unpublished pieces and so on and so forth.
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  But basically all pianists who have amassed comprehensive Schumann cycles do include all
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  of the works with opus numbers plus other pieces that have long been a part of the proverbial
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  canon.
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  So I'm going to give you just a very general guide to some of the Schumann cycles past
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  and present without going into great detail.
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  This is just to tell you what's out there and what has been available and what might
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  hold your interest and some rarities that you might want to look out for.
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  At some later point I might delve into one or two of these cycles in much much more detail,
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  but for now here's just a general guide to what has been out there as far as Schumann
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  cycles are concerned.
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  Peter Frankel recorded a Schumann cycle for the Vox label and it's currently available
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  from Menuetto Classics in download format.
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  You can download lossless files of the whole cycle for around $50 and considering that's
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  the equivalent of 14 CDs I guess it's actually quite a bargain.
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  This is a very consistent and stylish Schumann cycle.
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  You're not going to want Peter Frankel to replace your favorite versions and the big
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  pieces, but you know nothing falls below a very high standard and I've enjoyed these
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  performances on and off for many years.
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  The pianist Carl Engel's Schumann cycle was originally recorded for the French Valois
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  label and they appeared on the Telefunken label during the LP era in these beautiful
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  boxes.
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  Anyway, the whole cycle was issued in Japan on CD and that edition is almost impossible
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  to find.
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  I happen to have it here, but I don't listen to it a lot, but there is much to admire,
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  especially in the strange introspective works like the morning songs.
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  Much of Waltzainen I like.
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  His late album Blatter I think are very beautiful.
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  His Carnival and C major fantasy are not the most ardent and red blooded around, but the
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  Kinderzehnen is beautiful and the Davidsbundler is really quite characterful.
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  The Davidsbundler tons.
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  I mean, have to add tons at the end of that.
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  That's a very volatile kind of piece and Carl Engel is not the most volatile pianist on the
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  block, but generally this cycle is more hit than miss and it's well worth hearing, but
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  I would not break the bank seeking it out.
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  The pianist René Giannoli recorded a Schumann cycle that first appeared on CD on individual
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  discs on the ADES label, A-D-E-S, and then it was boxed up on the accord label.
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  Universal Classics controls the copyrights.
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  But I have to say that this pianist was frankly way past her best when she came to make these
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  recordings.
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  Usually she's under tempo and quite effortful and you really have to wade through this collection
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  to find the best things, but by and large it is not a Schumann cycle that I would recommend.
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  But I would recommend the cycle with pianist Jörg Deymes.
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  It came out on the Nuova Era label at one time and I remember it was selling for next
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  to nothing in physical format and it's floated around in all kinds of incarnations.
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  Sometimes the recording quality is a little bit dry, but not always and generally Jörg
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  Deymes is a very strong and authoritative Schumann player.
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  I like his Chrysler Rihanna a lot and the C major fantasy is very good.
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  His third sonata, you know the so-called Concerto without Orchestra, I think really holds its
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  own against the competition.
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  And if you can find the cycle for not a whole lot of money, I would definitely get it.
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  Don't underestimate Jörg Deymes and Schumann.
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  I should mention a complete Schumann cycle on the Thorifon label with the pianist Franz
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  Voraber.
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  I haven't heard all of it to be perfectly frank.
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  I've only heard maybe three or four discs and that was years ago.
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  But I had mixed impressions about what I did here.
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  He can be kind of aggressive and even insensitive.
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  I'm thinking about the novelettin where he just barnstorms his way through some of the
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  pieces.
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  But this kind of approach actually proved pretty exciting in Carnival.
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  I guess it depends on the work.
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  So my jury is still out on the cycle and I really don't know in which format you can
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  find all of the volumes.
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  But there is one Schumann cycle that I've really grown quite fond of.
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  And I just recently found a secondhand copy of it because I missed it when it came out
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  the first time around.
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  It features the French pianist Donna Cio Carli.
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  Did I say that correctly?
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  C-I-O-C-A-R-L-I-E.
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  Dana or Donna.
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  Okay.
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  Dana Cio Carli.
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  And it's on the La Dolce Volta label.
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  And what makes this cycle interesting is that all of the performances were recorded live
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  in concert.
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  And there's a real sense of occasion and more than a few surges of adrenaline resulting
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  from her tendency toward animated tempos.
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  And it is true that she sometimes pushes her really terrific technique to the limits and
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  sometimes forces her sound.
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  But honestly that doesn't bother me in the heat of the moment because these are vibrant
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  recordings that really hold your attention.
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  But there's a lot of sensitivity.
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  I don't know why I think of Dana Cio Carli as something of a cross between Clara Haskell
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  and Alfred Courtauld.
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  I don't know.
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  Maybe I'm wrong about that.
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  But I have gotten a lot of enjoyment from this set.
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  If you can find this set in physical format at a good price, grab it.
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  But you can find downloads.
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  But the downloads are all individual releases and they seem to be on the expensive side.
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  But this is a Schumann cycle that's definitely ripe for reissue.
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  I also want to mention an interesting, though only partial Schumann cycle because it's
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  kind of a curiosity.
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  And it's a set that I myself did not know about until only recently when I stumbled
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  upon a review published in a back issue of International Piano Magazine.
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  It features the late pianist and conductor Jean-Pierre Marty.
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  And he was known mainly as a collaborative pianist and as a conductor, not so much as
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  a virtuoso piano soloist.
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  The story behind this set is that Jean-Pierre Marty would spend several weeks each summer
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  at the summer home in Maine owned by Mr. Day Thorpe, who was the manager of the Washington
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  Opera where he would often conduct.
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  Jean-Pierre Marty would conduct, I mean.
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  So Mr. Day Thorpe was an amateur recording buff who owned very good recording equipment.
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  So apparently during the summer of 1969, Marty played through several Schumann sonatas that
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  he had recently learned.
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  And he allowed his friend to record him very informally, just straight playthroughs with
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  no editing.
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  And then Mr. Thorpe said to his friend, hey, why don't we record Schumann's complete piano
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  works just for fun?
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  So that's exactly what happened.
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  Jean-Pierre Marty started working on and playing through all of Schumann's piano works in opus
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  number order with Mr. Thorpe's tape recorder capturing it all.
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  These were just playthroughs in one take, no editing at all.
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  And these informal sessions spilled over into the next few summers of 1970 and 1971.
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  The project got as far as opus 32 and it never went any further.
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  But the tapes were rediscovered in 2007 and they all happened to be in surprisingly good
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  condition.
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  So the solstice label brought out a box set of these recordings.
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  Obviously the sound is hardly up to today's professional standards, but it is kind of
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  fun to hear this really fine pianist and musician go through Schumann on the fly, so to speak.
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  It's kind of like sitting in on an informal jam session or something like that.
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  So they're interesting recordings.
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  Unfortunately, this release has been way out of print for a long time.
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  I did finally find a copy at the Academy Records Store on 18th Street in New York City, which
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  is the largest secondhand record store for classical music in New York City.
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  And I saw a copy in the window.
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  I think they were selling it for $30.
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  It's eight CDs, but I grabbed it because I thought, you know, when am I ever going to
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  see this again?
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  And I've enjoyed it from time to time.
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  I suppose I also should mention the partial Schumann cycles that were recorded for commercial
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  release.
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  There was one with Claudio Aurao and one with Vladimir Ashkenazi.
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  And I think I will save discussion about those for another time.
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  But I do have two recent complete Schumann cycles to mention.
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  Florian Ullig's 17-disc Schumann survey for Henslert Classics stands out because it is
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  as comprehensive as possible, leaving no unpublished piece unaccounted for and leaving no sketch
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  unturned, so to speak.
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  So from a musicological standpoint, it's absolutely invaluable.
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  And the documentation and the annotations could not be better.
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  That said, I kind of find them to be an uneven interpreter.
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  I mean, the playing is always on a very high level, but it isn't consistently inspired
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  to my taste.
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  Sometimes the playing lacks ardency.
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  But as far as documentation is concerned and completeness, this is really quite unique.
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  However, if I have to mention the most consistently satisfying piano playing in a complete Schumann
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  cycle, that has to be from the pianist Eric Lassage.
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  He recorded all of Schumann's piano works on the Alpha label, and it's readily available
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  as a box set.
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  And he also recorded the complete Schumann chamber music with piano, also for Alpha.
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  He's a great technician.
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  He's a sensitive colorist, and he's always alert to inner voices and bass lines and asymmetric
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  phrases without resorting to eccentricity or overdoing it.
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  And I think I reviewed one of these volumes quite a while ago, and I wasn't terribly sold
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  on it, but it's really grown on me since.
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  And again, it's the consistency that has sold me on this box set.
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  But the other thing that distinguishes his Schumann playing is that Eric Lassage really
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  has that knack for hitting on just the right tempos.
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  There isn't a tempo that seems too fast or too slow.
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  You really can agree with all of his tempos, actually.
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  So for the most consistent performances by one pianist in all of Schumann with superb
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  engineering, I definitely would make the cycle on Alpha with Eric Lassage a priority purchase.
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  He's not going to make you forget about or part with your favorite reference versions
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  of certain Schumann works.
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  I mean, you're not going to toss out your Vladimir Horowitz-Chrysler-Jana or your Carnival
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  with Nelson Fréry or your C Major Fantasy with Sergio Fiorentino or your Kinje Zanin
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  with Yvonne Moravetz, but as I said, you're not going to find a more consistent Schumann
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  cycle out there than with Eric Lassage.
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  This is Jed Disler, and you've been listening to the Piano Maven, your friendly podcast
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  guide to piano recordings.
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  Thank you so much for listening, and I look forward to being with you for the next episode.
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  Take good care.