Schumann the "musical poet" states his vision of a masterpie
D. Busch | Providence, RI | 08/06/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"For anyone afraid to step into the territory of recordings of one great composer's vision of another great composer's work - relax and get happy for here is an explication that really works. It's not just what Schumann brings out or adds but the performance and acoustic chosen come together as well to make Bach here something truly dark and majestic, not just a stately, reverential, litergical dustball. It's not about whether or not some favor the St. Matthew Passion. Schumann wrote that he saw greater poetry in the writing as a whole in the shorter St. John. Get this and be glad that you have a very exceptional performance of what one ecstatically great composer saw of himself in another earlier deeply profound one.
I loaded the discs into my home computer and burnt a new cd of just the best music without any of the chorals and uniquely you get the feeling of understanding the piece on a new level, perhaps for the first time. A desert island disc really. I put the very interestingly performed chorals together in order and added just the instrumental Dowland: 7 Teares performed amazingly by Norwegian Baroque Orchestra conducted by Lutenist, Rolf Lislevand and burnt this onto a completely separate new cd for another desert island disc albeit homeconceived. It's a great thing to put your 2 cents into something. Enjoy."