Unsung...Schumann?

[mbhaub]

I think followers of this sight will get a chuckle from this:

Last night I was at a concert. Before it started, the conductor came out to introduce the music. He gets to the last work on the concert: Schumann's 4th Symphony. Then he declares, "Schumann is an unjustly neglected composer." I couldn't help but laugh. I'm sure the maestro didn't hear me, but people around me did and probably think I'm a rude, stupid hick (Ok, I do wear cowboy boots to concerts). Unjustly neglected! With hundreds of cds made, countless symphony cycles, and numerous biographies I think M. Christie is a bit off base. In fairness, he has given us some truly neglected music like Zemlinsky, Korngold, Gal. Schumann neglected? Hardly.

[Alan Howe]

Georg Schumann - yes. But Robert? Perhaps your conductor should listen to ClassicFM more often...

[eschiss1]

I think he meant under-appreciated, which is true and means several things; with Schumann, Haydn or Dvorak you do hear a restricted circle of things, mostly, and a performance of Paradis und der Peri in New York City a few Decembers ago in NYC was something worth note; (likewise with Haydn operas, or Dvorak's.. that much has been discussed here before.

[Alan Howe]

Schumann is hardly a 'neglected composer', though. Nevertheless, it's important to point out that the vast majority of music written, whether by sung or unsung composers, is actually neglected because the core repertoire is in reality so small.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I'd put him in the category of what I call a 'taken for granted composer'. Which means that a few of his works get both performed regularly and jump out at you unexpectedly in TV soundtracks or advertisements (or on Classic FM!); a few more come up occasionally; and the majority are included in 25 CD boxed sets of 'complete editions' but are hardly ever or even never performed in concert despite being always interesting and sometimes wonderfully good. Poor Schumann.

Just to take a couple at random to illustrate that last point: when was the last time you heard Nachtlied Op. 108 for chorus & orchestra? Or the Overture to Schiller's Die Braut von Messina Op. 100? There are many others that are far from negligible works, but which never get performed or just get recorded for the sake of a 'complete edition'.

I'm in fact rather tempted to agree with the conductor who announced that Schumann is an unjustly neglected composer - although, to be sure, prima facie that does seem a silly thing to say.

[Alan Howe]

Schumann is not an 'unjustly neglected composer', although he did write some unjustly neglected music - but then so did virtually any sung composer with a catalogue of a decent size.

Anyway, perhaps it might be worth focusing on major works by Schumann that are rarely performed...

[Balapoel]

There are surprisingly few pieces in his catalogue that haven't been recorded (as far as I can tell), unlike Mendelssohn and others. These are the pieces I cannot find recordings to. I would very much like to hear the extant parts of the Sinfonia solemnis, as I find his early Zwickauer symphony to be wonderfully sturm und drang...

Chamber
a few sketches and unfinished pieces, like Piano Quartet in e minor (1831)

Opera
Der Corsar, Opera (unfinished; only one chorus and 1 aria exist)

Orchestral
Symphony in c minor, Anh 5/6 (Sinfonia solemnis). Substantial sketches exist:
1 Andante - Allegro agitato 151T; 2 Allegro con brio 152 T; 3 Scherzo 161T; 4 Adagio 39T; 5 Rondo 239T

Voice(s) and Orchestra
Overture and Chorus (Chor von Landleuten) (1822)
Psalm 150, chorus and orchestra (1822)
Tragoedie for chorus and orchestra (1841)
Festival overture on the Rheinweinlied for orchestra and chorus, Op. 123
Das Gluck von Edenhall, Op. 143

Piano
6 Walzes (1830)
12 Burlesken (1832)
Fandango (1832)
2 Fughes (183)
Prelude and Fugue (1832)
Klavierstucke, WoO 16 (1-4; I have onlys seen 1 and 3)
Klavierstucke, Op. 30 (1-17; I have only seen 1-8)
Fantasiestuck (Feuerigst, con fuoco in Ab), WoO 28
Sonata (1832)
Sonata movement (1836)
Variations on a theme of Prince Louis Ferdinand (1828)
Variations on a theme of Weber (1831)
Andante with variations on an original theme (1832)
Variations on a nocturne by Chopin (1834)

Vocal (Songs)Hatte zu einem Traubekerne, WoO 12
Verwandlung (1827)
Maultreiberlied (1838)
Auf Wiedersehen, WoO 8
Hirtenknabengesang, WoO 18
Zum Anfang, WoO 17
Die Amenuhr

[eschiss1]

Hrm. There's been at least one recording of the Festival Overture (1993 Arkadia CD), but I think more than that.

Zum Anfang, WoO 17 was sung by Die Singphoniker on cpo with the other partsongs for male voices, I think.

There's been an EMI recording of die Gluck von Edenhall, or so I gather from Worldcat. Part of his "Sämtliche Balladen für Soli, Chor und Orchester". I don't know anything about it. (First on LP, then CD. Awhile ago, I suspect deleted- though Worldcat mentions a 2010 reissue.)

[JimL]

What about works like the Op. 86 Konzertstück for Four Horns?  Absolute masterwork, recorded fairly often, but underperformed simply because of the logistics involving the soloists?  Most orchestras who do perform it, I'd be willing to bet, simply have their four regular hornists as soloists and call in two backups for the orchestral horn parts (there are only two in the orchestra, understandably so).

[Alan Howe]

Great piece, Jim, I agree. How about his Overture, Scherzo and Finale?

[eschiss1]

have known the Overture, Scherzo ... (which I think he intended to call Sinfonietta? Goes well under that name...) for a good long time and have always loved it... some of the music of its dedicatee (Verhulst) has been recorded and performed (including one of his string quartets (broadcast) and a fine symphony (two commercial recordings). A composer who warrants further investigation still, I think, based on the scores I've seen of other stuff besides... )

Some of those "X" and their circle recordings (Brahms, Schumann, etc.) will hopefully prove interesting to more than just the confirmed seeker of unsung music (one of them- a more Schubert-centered-one, I think- concentrated mostly on songs by Krufft and Franz Lachner, for instance, and received an interesting (positive) review; haven't heard it yet though. One could of course do quite a lot with Schumann given his close relations with many now underknown composers (I think of his letters with Hiller concerning the latter's E minor symphony which suggest that they had some sort of acquaintance...)

[mbhaub]

Well, while we're on Schumann - any opinions regarding the Mahler versions of the symphonies? As much as I abhor tampering with scores, I must admit that Mahler really does make the symphonies sing, admittedly at times inappropriately. What I cannot understand is why Mahler made that small but really annoying cut at the end of the 2nd.

[Mark Thomas]

Out of idle curiosity I bought the (BIS?) set a few years ago for a couple of dollars in a bin sale at the old Tower Records Classical Annex on Sunset Boulevard whilst visiting the US. I thought that I'd hate Mahler's tinkerings but they definitely do give a clarity and focus to Schumann's sometimes unimaginative scoring perking up the symphonies' duller moments. From memory (I may be wrong), Mahler is quite subtle in his alterations and remains faithful to the spirit of Schumann's works. They still sound as if they were written in the 1840s/50s, not in the 1890s. That said, there's nothing much wrong with the originals when they are played by an appropriately (i.e. modestly) sized orchestra and I've only returned to the Mahler re-orchestrations a few times. Can't say I remember the cut at the end of the Second.

[kolaboy]

Schumann's choral ballad "Der Königssohn" is a masterpiece. All four deserve to be better known.

[chill319]

I recall the critic/musicologist Joseph Kerman saying in the mid 1950s that he thought the neglect of Schumann's symphonies was unwarranted. Being young, I took this more or less as gospel and  henceforth thought of the Schumann symphonies in much the same way that I thought of, say, Dvorak's symphony 6 (not so numbered at the time) -- existing, perhaps unfairly, in the penumbra of the Sung Symphonies. Then along with the stereo era came full sets by the likes of Kubelik, Szell, and Bernstein -- and Schumann's symphonies as a corpus seemed to move from the periphery towards the center of the symphonic canon.

I write all this simply as description. My question for this group is, were my impressions anything like your own observations -- or were they purely provincial and anecdotal?