Search - Barenboim, Tortelier, Kremer :: Schumann: Concertos

A miscellany of fine performances

Molly the Cat | the USA | 10/08/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This remastering of analog performances recorded from 1974-1982 contains Robert Schumann's concertos for piano, cello, and violin, as well as two works entitled "Konzertstueck": op. 92 for piano and orchestra and op. 86 for four horns and orchestra. The main reason I purchased it was to have the violin concerto, but all of the performances are of a very high caliber.



The violin concerto has a particularly tortuous history. Written in 1853, not long before Schumann's suicide attempt and confinement, it remained unpublished for decades due to the prohibitions of its dedicatee Joseph Joachim and Schumann's widow Clara. (She considered the work to reveal symptoms of Robert's mental deterioration and even expressed the wish to burn the manuscript score!) Joachim's son later decided that the concerto would only be released to the world a century after Schumann's death, but reversed himself in 1936, when the concerto received its first public performances (the U.S. premiere by Yehudi Menuhin, who praised the concerto in generous terms).



All of the works are very well played here, by an assortment of artists including Daniel Barenboim teaming up with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (better known as a baritone than as a conductor) for the piano concerto, Gidon Kremer in the violin concerto with Riccardo Muti, and Paul Tortelier doing the cello concerto with Yan-Pascal Tortelier. Considering the differing performance dates and performers, there is some variability in the presence of the recorded sound--the cello concerto has a "warmer" recorded sound to my ear than the violin concerto, for instance--, but all are very fine. As a way of getting all Schumann's concertos in one well-performed set, this 2 CD anthology will not disappoint."