1 CD - 4509-90696-2 - (p) 1994

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)






Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54
29' 39"
- Allegro affettuoso 14' 24"
1
- Intermezzo: Andantino grazioso 5' 09"
2
- Allegro vivace 10' 01"
3
Violin Concerto in D minor
32' 46"
- In kräftigem, nicht zu schnellem Tempo
15' 31"
4
- Langsam
4' 49"
5
- Lebhaft, doch nicht schnell 12' 22"
6




 
Martha Argerich, Piano
Gidon Kremer, Violin


Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Dirigent
 
Luogo e data di registrazione
Stefaniensaal, Graz (Austria):
- luglio 1992 (Piano Concerto)
- luglio 1994 (Violin Concerto)
Registrazione live / studio
live
Producer / Engineer
Wolfgang Mohre / Helmut Mühle / Michael Brammann
Prima Edizione CD
Teldec - 4509-90696-2 - (1 cd) - 62' 34" - (p) 1994 - DDD
Prima Edizione LP
-

When two Poles dance a polonaise...
The present recording brings togheter two concertos by Robert Schumann: the famous and ofteplayed Piano Concerto and the more rarely performed Violin Converto, a work whose reception history is beset by legends and curious attempts to interpret it. Margarete Zander was on hand during preparations for live recordings of both concertos and spoke with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gidon Kremer.

Both concertos demand a great artist to interpret them, while offering the soloist only very limited opportunities to display his virtuosity. "You need an outstanding interpreter with a virtuoso technique," Nikolaus Harnoneourt explains. “If he only wants to show off his artistic abilities and earn some cheap applause, he should look for something else to play."
The opening movement of the Piano Concerto op. 54 was originally intended as a separate work. In spite of its prestigious first performance in 1841 as a “Fantasia for Piano with Orchestral Accompaniment", with Schumann's wife, Clara, as soloist and Felix Mendelssohn as conductor, no publisher showed any interest in taking on the work. Four years later Schumann returned to the piece and reworked it as a piano concerto, adding an intermezzo and finale to the existing fantasia. In doing so, he not only reused individual themes but retained the fantasia's chamberlike character.
The soloist has to ensure that the writing remains transparent and, at the same time, support individual orchestral voices. In consequence, he enters into dialogue in the first instance not with the orchestra as a whole but with individual instruments or groups of mstrumenn An additional, and no less delightful, novelty is the solo writing for the cellos in the Intermezzo. It is the soloist's role effectively to bear the weight of the works outer substance and ensure its inner tension and to communicate that substance and tension to the orchestra. This requirement on Schumann's part is also clear from the cadenza, which, written out in full, gives no scope to any personal display of gymnastics on the soloist’s part. Designed to be virtuosic in nature, it also forms the musical high point of the work. The result, according to Schumann, is “something between symphony, concerto and grand sonata".
For a long time, legend had it that the Violin Concerto in D minor was unplayable and that it was not, in any case, one of the better works of a composer who, at the time of its composition, was already suffering the first signs of madness. This was a view to which Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim, no less, gave active support. Not until 1937 was it possible to arrange the first performance of the piece, an initiative due in no small measure to the then head of the music section of the Prussian State Library, Georg Schünemann. Both Yehudi Menuhin and Georg Kulenkampff expressed an interest in giving the first performance, but Menuhin's Jewish extraction ruled him out of court as far as the Nazi authorities were concerned.
The myth that the work was unplayable proved tenacious, particularly in relation to the third movement. The tempo heading, “Lively, but not fast” and Schumann's metronome marking of one crotchet = 63 struck many soloists as simply too slow and, therefore, not conducive to a show of virtuosity. As a result, Kulenkarnpff had the bizarre idea of inviting Paul Hindemith to revise or, more accurately, to simplify the third movement, so that he would be able to perform it at a suitably fast tempo. Nor was Kulenkarnpff alone in thinking like this. The same idea lies behind the solution of taking the second movement very slowly and the third as quickly as possible, a solution that has become something of a tradition in interpretations of the work.
Harnoncourt adduces good reasons for taking the final movement (described in the score as a polonaise) at a slower tempo: “On the subject of the Polonaise, there is a letter to Schumann from Joseph Joachim: ‘If only I could play you your D minor Concerto. I’ve now got it more under my fingers than I had rn Hanover; where, to my intense annoyance, I had to play it at the rehearsal in a way that was unworthy of you. [...] The 3/4 time signature now sounds much more imposing. Do you still remember laughing and expressing delight when we said that the final movement sounds like Kosciuszko and Sobieski starting to dance a polonaise. So imposing.”Kosciuszko was a Polish freedom fighter, while Sobieski was the Polish king, John III, who liberated Vienna during the Turkish siege at the end of the seventeenth century. In other words, Schumann has two very grand characters dancing a polonaise here. Very few people know what a polonaise was like at that time. I’ve a quotation here relating to Chopin's teaching methods - and it sums up exactly the sort of ideas on which Schumann was drawing: "I  know for a fact that Chopin expressly recommended his pupils to count six to a bar when they were studying polonaises and the time-signature was 3/4.” In other words, they should count in quavers. in this way he showed that he wanted the tempo taken at exactly the same speed at which it was taken when dancing: with pride and grandeur. Of course, it isn`t easy to play it like this and it doesn't conform to people's traditional picture of a concerto’s final movement. People think that this is the time for the grand solo gesture - in Austria we call it the Außi-Schmeißer [literally, "music at throwing-out time"] - which is how the majority of final movements in solo concertos are conceived. But that's not the case here.”
Gidon Kremer describes his music-making in this way: "To make music demands that you merge vnth the music. Not every artist or every listener is capable of this, but there are still a few; thank God, who can do so, and I admire them.” When practising, Kremer seeks inspiration solely in the autograph score. In consequence, there is always "an exhilarating feeling about sitting in front of the music that Schumann himself wrote". Schumann's Violin Concerto has been part of his repertory since 1980, but until now no one has undertaken the experiment with him of playing the third movement at the speed prescribed by Schumann. Yet Kremer insists that "what matters is not the metronome marking but the basic idea. Schumann prescribed completely unambiguous tempi. If you respect them in the first and second movements, why not also in the third? Why should he have made a mistake in the third movement?" A striking argument in favour of the slower tempo is Kremer's observation that "there isn't a single note that isn’t playable. At this tempo every bar is playable".
Gidon Kremer is one of Scburnanns most passionate advocates: “For me, Schumann is significant because he was a genius and because he committed many of his most brilliant ideas to paper almost without thinking about them. With Schumann, it`s not a question of developing every musical idea. What you find, instead, are very often ideas pure and simple, which are developed without much thought. But these naked ideas or naked impulses are so brilliant that they are sometimes more powerful than the most carefully composed piece of music by Brahms. Each of his works contains such brilliant ideas. Schumann was able to draw on such an incredibly powerful inner world - a world that perhaps also destroyed him."

Translation: Stewart Spencer

Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)
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