Aloys Schmitt Piano Concertos on Hyperion

[eschiss1]

I'm guessing that with all of Schumann's written music criticism we may not have to guess at an answer to that one? (In fact, in response to an unfavorable criticism of Chopin's concertante Op.2, he wrote "What is a whole volume of a journal in the face of a Chopin concerto?")

[Alan Howe]

I guess it was 'safe' to denigrate figures such as Schmitt and Moscheles. It's still going on today...

[eschiss1]

I bought (and started reading) an interesting book called "Schumann's Virtuosity: Criticism, Composition, and Performance in Nineteenth-Century Germany" that talks about the shifting attitudes towards virtuosity in 19th-century Germany and Schumann's criticism (got it cheaply at Amazon Kindle). I could see if Schmitt is mentioned therein...

(Edit: I love how academic books are sometimes available very cheaply or for free because of a grant online that still cost $50+ to get in print. Some really neat things, some of them about aspects of music, and one book about Jewish history by an old friend of mine, I've gotten this way...)

[eschiss1]

Doesn't mention Schmitt. Book does have this to say about Moscheles early on - "Moscheles, one of Schumann's early idols, enjoyed an uncommonly wide-ranging career. Roughly the same generation as Hummel, he lived from 1794 to 1870. He toured as a pianist, conducted the London Philharmonic, gave "historical soirees" where he performed Bach and Scarlatti, and taught at the Leipzig Conservatory. In addition to piano showpieces like his "Alexander" Variations, he composed chamber and orchestral music and, by the 1830s, was writing concertos that Schumann believed were turning away from postclassical norms (see chapter 4)". (Haven't gotten to chapter 4 yet but I have a notion that the author may share the common bias against Moscheles and against Hummel, who was the subject of the first half of the paragraph. The "roughly the same generation as Hummel" is rather eye-boggling, but maybe he means a different Hummel.)

[eschiss1]

As to Schumann's opinion of Chopin's 2 concertos so-named, he said, in a review of them, (in a translation from the German) (in 1836) "Chopin's works are cannons buried in flowers".

[Alan Howe]

Not much cannon in his orchestrations! The power's in the flowers...

[eschiss1]

Some accounts claim he wasn't referring to the concertos at all even though it was in a review of them, and I don't know if canon and cannon are the pun in German that they are in English (are they, canonically anyway?) Though yes, if he'd orchestrated the 2 concertos even as well as he did his other concertante works, leave alone concertos by comparable contemporaries (and there were few composers comparable to Chopin, though I admit I once held otherwise), I'd think better of them. As it is, they're among his most popular works but among my least favorite, to put it mildly, in his output. Edit: Walker's excellent (imho) biography of Chopin does not touch on this, but it could be that Chopin, like Mozart in his middle concertos, was adapting to allow for orchestras of less than brilliant abilities. Not sure.

(I will listen to the Schmitt concertos as soon as may be so as better to contribute to this thread, of course. Apologies. Though Amazon Music has no Hyperion recordings, so streaming them by that route is not an option )

[Alan Howe]

As it is, they're among his most popular works

There's not much choice, is there (orchestrally speaking)? I put it down to the ClassicFM effect. They're played all the time.

By the way - apologies for mis-spelling 'cannon' (I never get that right). I have now corrected it.

In German, 'Kanone' (f) means 'cannon', whereas 'Kanon' (m) means 'canon'.

[Alan Howe]

Another point is surely this: Chopin was born in 1810, Schmitt in 1788; in other words, Schmitt was a full generation earlier as a composer. So, what on earth did Chopin expect Schmitt to sound like?

Now, I like Chopin's PCs, but I rather like the extra 'punch' one finds in Schmitt from this earlier generation.

[Alan Howe]

Here's Jonathan's excellent review:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/Classrev/2022/Aug/Schmitt-PCs-CDA68389.htm

[Darrel Hoffman]

Sorry to revive an old topic, but this seemed relevant.

So in my continuing search for new obscure works to transcribe, I ran across this Op.60 concerto in A minor (at least it starts in A minor, ends in A major, I haven't gone through the whole thing yet to see what else it does):

https://imslp.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto%2C_Op.60_(Schmitt%2C_Aloys)

This does not appear to be either the Op.14 or the Op.34 recorded on Hyperion, and I can't find any other recordings of it, so it looks like it'd be fair game for me to work on this one (I don't do transcriptions of works that have existing recordings that I can find - or at least I try not to).

I just wanted to check with the experts here to make sure I'm not missing something.  Interestingly, IMSLP has 2 piano concertos by Schmitt, but neither of them are the ones in the Hyperion recordings as far as I can tell.  The other is an Eb concerto, Op.76, but it has only the piano solo part available.  If someone knows where I can find the rest of the parts, I could do both of them, but the Op.60 at least seems ready to go as-is.

(I've got other stuff ahead of it to work on, I just like to keep a backlog of things to do in the future.)

[Gareth Vaughan]

Schmitt wrote 3 Piano Concertos and 2 works he called concertinos:-

Piano concerto No.1 Op.14 (orchestral parts only, Library of Congress; solo piano part only, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin)
Piano concerto No.2 Op.34 (parts, Goethe Institute, Frankfurt – unclear whether includes solo piano part, or orchestral parts only)
Piano concerto No.3 Op.60 (solo piano part & orchestral parts, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek; also at IMSLP)
Piano concertino 'Le Retour a Francfort'  Op.75 [solo piano part only (pub. Offenbach), British Library & Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; orchestral parts, Newberry Library, Chicago – lacking timpani part]
Piano concertino (or concerto) in E flat Op.76 (score and parts, Fleisher)

The first 2 are the ones recorded by Hyperion.

[Darrel Hoffman]

Yeah, this pretty much confirms what I've seen (except I missed the Op.75), so the 3rd concerto and the 2 concertinos evidently remain unrecorded?  I'll definitely add the Op.60 to my list to work on then.  As for the concertinos - maybe if I can figure out how to get the scores from those various libraries.

I had to check, because sometimes there are multiple competing numbering systems so I wanted to make sure it wasn't the same piece by another name.  And I guess it was just a coincidence that Hyperion and IMSLP each have 2 of them, but no overlap.  I almost considered that there might be two composers with the same name, but they both use the same photograph of him.  Thanks.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Fleisher should lend you the score of Op. 76 for very few bucks - maybe only the cost of postage.
I think Newberry may have the solo piano part of Op. 75 as well as the orchestral parts. Don't know what they would charge to digitise them for you.

[Darrel Hoffman]

Thanks for the info, though I'm currently operating on zero budget - I'm not nearly popular enough yet to be making revenue from this project.  At any rate, I've got enough to work on for a little bit.  I'm already about half done with the first movement of Op.60 and quite liking it so far - it's a shame Hyperion only did the first two because this one really needs to be heard.  You'll all get the chance when I finish this in several weeks.  (It doesn't actually take several weeks - I'm just interspersing the work with several other pieces so I can maintain a weekly release schedule.)

Incidentally, what are your sources for knowing where these scores can be found?  Is there some big master list that somebody has compiled?  I know there is one for recordings that several members of this forum have put together, but a similar reference for manuscripts would be very helpful.